Appendix:Jamaican Creole

This appendix provides an overview of Jamaican Creole grammar and concludes with external links to resources for learning and experiencing the language.

Jamaican Creole can be written in two orthographies:

• Chaka-chaka, an informal orthographic continuum that ranges from standard English spelling to ad-hoc phonetic spelling.
• Cassidy/JLU orthography, a standardized phonetic orthography. This system is used more here due to its increased attestability.

Jamaican Creole vocabulary is derived largely from, but not exclusively, English.

See: Category:Jamaican Creole nouns

There are no declensions except -dem for the plural form, with di as the definite article and wan as the indefinite article. For example:

• di buk-dem

  the books

• wan ailan

  an island

If the plural noun is indefinite it is not necessary to use the -dem marker:

• Rat nyam chiiz.

  Rats eat cheese.

-dem is also unnecessary when the amount is already stated (quantified):

• chrii daag

  three dogs

When attached to the end of a proper name it means (person named) and the others:

• Jan-dem

  John and the others

-dem is used more often for human beings than for animals, and more often for animals than for inanimate objects.

See: Category:Jamaican Creole pronouns

• enibadi: anybody, whoever
• evribadi: everybody
• nobadi: nobody, anybody (in a sentence that is already negative)
• sumadi: somebody
• uu: who
• uufa: whose
• i: it, its

See: Category:Jamaican Creole adjectives

Comparative and superlative forms function similar to English:

• likl, likla, liklis: little, littler, littlest
• big, biga, bigis: big, bigger, biggest
• gud, beta, bes: good, better, best

See: Category:Jamaican Creole verbs

There are no conjugations. The particles a and de are used for the -ing form, did marks the past tense, afi/fi mark obligation or futurity, naa/no mark negativity. Examples of verbs:

• andastan (to understand)
• sidong (to sit down)
• tingk (to think)
• nuo (to know)
• si (to see)
• se (to say)

See: Category:Jamaican Creole adverbs

Common adverbs include:

• de there, de-so right there
• kyan can
• kyaahn can't
• neehn not (negates the meaning of the modified verb)
• op (intensifier) Used as an aspect marker to indicate a completed action or state
• ya here, ya-so right here

Jamaican Creole has various short particles, prepositions, determiners, conjunctions that occur frequently and are important to understanding the meaning of a sentence. They are listed below all in one place for convenience.

• Verb: be
  • is, it's

    Jumieka a wan ailan konchri. (Jamaica is an island country.)

  • am, are

    Wi a api. (We are happy)

    Mi a di tiicha. (I am the teacher.)

  • there is, there are

    A tuu apruoch. (There are two approaches)

• Preposition:
  • Indicates location: at, in, on.

    A mi yaad (at my home)

  • of

    Yunaitid Stiet a Amoerka. (United States of America)

  • to

    Dem go a maakit. Mi a-go a skuul. (They go to the market. I'm going to school.)

• Particle:
  • Habitual present tense marker.

    Wan plies we dem a plie haki mach. (A place where they play hockey matches)

  • Precedes a verb to mark the -ing form.

    a laaf, a ron, a iit, a-go (laughing, running, eating, going)

• Verb: must

• Conjunction: and

• Conjunction: or

• Verb: has/have

• Determiner: this here; that there

  da leta ya (this letter here)

  da nyuuz de (that news there)

• Determiner: that

• Particle:
  • Present progressive tense marker used before verbs.

    Im de kom. (She is coming.)

• Adverb:
  • there

    uova de (over there)

• Article: the

• Particle: Marks the past tense.

  Im did wel rich. (He was very rich.)

• Preposition:
  • for

    Mi head a hot mi. Yuh have supn can gimme fi it? (I have a headache. Can you give me something for the pain?)

  • (+ infinitive) to

    Wi waan fi nuo wa gwaan. (We want to know what's going on.)

  • (interrogative) (+ infinitive) can

    How dem fi do dat? (How can they do a thing like that?)

  • (+ infinitive) should

    Im fi tap it. (He/She should stop doing that.)

• Preposition: in/into

• Particle: negative continuous aspect marker

  Mi naa taak. (I am not talking.)

• Verb: don't, doesn't
• Adverb: no, not

• Preposition: on

• Pronoun: that (which, who; representing a subject, direct object, indirect object, or object of a preposition)
• Verb: to say, to tell

• Preposition: (Used with ya) Here is; here are.

  Si Jan ya. (Here is John.)

  Si yu buk-dem ya. (Here are your books.)

• Verb: to see

• Determiner: what

• Article: a (indefinite article)

• Conjunction:
  • that

    Uman we a mada (Women that are mothers)

  • where

These resources can be used to learn and study Jamaican Creole.

• Jamaican Creole on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Spelling Jamaican the Jamaican way 2-page overview of Jamaican orthography.
• 16-minute overview by Langfocus on YouTube.
• Open Grammar Project: A Learner’s Grammar of Jamaican note: incomplete and contains minor mistakes, but provides exhaustive examples.
• Peace Corps 1968 Jamaican Creole Language Course (319 pages) aimed at teachers. Focuses on sentence structure to an extent that no other resource does.
• Jumieka.com learner's resource for Jamaican Creole.
• Survey of Jamaican Creole by The Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Languages Structures Online (APiCS).

• Majstro.com translating dictionary A multilingual Esperanto dictionary that includes English ↔ Jamaican Creole translation.
• JamaicanPatwah.com

• Dictionary of Jamaican English (2002) 509 pages, academic.
• Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage (2003) 697 pages, academic
• Jabari : authentic Jamaican dictionary of the Jamic language (2006) 142 pages, formal.
• LMH Official Dictionary of Jamaican Words & Proverbs (2002) 75 pages, informal.
• The Official Dancehall Dictionary : A Guide to Jamaican Dialect and Dancehall Slang (1995) 72 pages, informal.

Availibility of written works in Jamaican Creole is somewhat limited:

• Biesik Jumiekan: Introduction to Jamaican Language Contains numerous short works in Jamaican Creole, in addition to its language instruction.
• The Jamaican Creole Wikipedia - note: largely written by non-native speakers. While the vocabulary and orthography is Jamaican Creole, the sentence structure of most articles is predominantly English.
• Storybooks Jamaica - simple childrens stories suitable for learners of Jamaican Creole.
• Braadkyaas Jamieka - YouTube channel dedicated to promoting the Jamaican Creole language.
• Yuunivorshal Deklarieshan a Yuuman Raits - the Jamaican Creole translation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
• KLAS Sports Radio 89.5 Kingston - largely Jamaican English, but with some Creole hosts/callers. And more generally, Jamaican Radio on Radio-Browser.info (most are in Jamaican English).

• Di Jamiekan Nyuu Testiment - The New Testament, translated in 2012 by the Bible Society of the West Indies. Online version with English available on Bible.com or JW.org.
• Book of Jonah - translated by Wycliffe Bible Translators Caribbean 2023. Contains text with optional audio narration.
• Jesus Film Project - Christian movie and videos dubbed in Jamaican Creole.
• Jehovah's Witnesses' Jamaican Creole version website - containing a large collection of magazines, pamphlets, articles, videos, and songs all in Jamaican Creole.
• Patwa Chapter Bible study podcast in Creole: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RSS feed.
• Words of Life - Jamaican Creole Bible stories.