KINGSTON, Jamaica — Walk into any government office, courtroom or classroom in Jamaica, and you’ll be expected to speak the official language, English. But venture into the street, tune into a radio ...

Most words in Jamaican patois, like other English Caribbean patois, are English words filtered through a distinct phonetic system with fewer vowels and different consonant sounds. Patois is written ...

“Well, I’ve always known that my views on Jamaican Creole or Patwa, the native language here, were contentious but sound”: Annie Paul is vindicated. Global Voices stands out as one of the earliest and ...

The battle lines have softened somewhat, but there is still substantial opposition to patois in the pulpit. Critics say it will dilute Scripture and undermine the already weak hold many poor Jamaicans ...

KINGSTON, JamaicaKINGSTON, Jamaica — When English teacher Faith Linton first proposed translating the Bible into Jamaica’s patois tongue in the late 1950s, most people who heard the idea shook their ...

What's worse than a bad movie? If you ask linguist Joseph Farquharson, he might say a movie that makes a caricature of the distinct patois of Jamaican accents. When asked to be an advisor on the new ...

Jamaicans have proverbs, expressions, and commentary on just about everything. Marital woes? Workplace drama? The frenzied pace of life? You name it–they’ve probably got an opinion. Some of these ...

Diversity matters, even when it comes in the form of a doll. With research that shows dolls with unrealistically thin bodies have had negative effects on young girls’ self-esteem, a movement has ...

Controversy over Bibles in Jamaica, the Philippines, and Germany reveal the divide between the sacred and the relatable. When Karen Roach first heard the Bible in Jamaican Patois, an English-based ...