Let's Keep up the Good Work, People! The standardization has

[Mosiah]

begun!

OrthographyBecause of its status as a non-standard language, there is no standard or official way of writing Jamaican Patois (for example the word 'there' can be written 'de', 'deh' or 'dere'; and the word for 'three' is most commonly spelt 'tree', but it can be spelt 'tri' or 'trii' to distinguish it from the noun tree). Often, Standard English spellings are used even when words are pronounced differently. At other times though, a spelling has become widespread even though it is neither phonetic nor standard (eg. 'pickney' = 'child'; in this case the spelling 'pikni' would be more phonetic). However, due to increased use on the internet and in e-mail in recent years, a user-driven process of partial standardization has been taking place.


- Wikipedia (Thanks, Peter R)

[Baddaz]

i am all for patois orthography... when we get there a whole new discussion can begin... the why, what, where, how, etc...

when we have orthography in place, we can teach patios as a subject in school, as we do english, spanish, french, german...

to instruct students in patois is a backward step, in my humble opinion... some will argue that patois is the first language and english is the second language... i dont know when that came into being... i have always known that english is the primary language in jamaica and patois was a dialect...

still i commend these linguist scholars for their attempt to formalize the dialect into a language...

[Gamma]

spanish, french, portuguese, italian and romanian are all "bastardization" of latin.....

it's progress......the grammy's have a category for reggae......REGGAE!!!! the sufferahs music made popular by the dutty rastas.......

i even think rastafarian is in most if not all english dictionaries.

[Muadib]

You can say English is the primary language in Jamaica all you want.

It does not make it so.

Why did you think that English was the predominant language of communication in Jamaica ?

[Sir X]

The way how I see it , you have to be literate to write and interpret patwa or patios , so speaking it is not an issue, writing and understanding will be the issue , they still have a literacy problem , same with english .

Is it worth it yes , because it involves literacy which means english must be used as the base of any interpretation.

We spreak patios or patwa everyday so even if every reading material went patios , we still have a literacy problem which only the literate will have an advantage.

[Baddaz]

language, being the operative word in this case... language...

[Muadib]

Where is Jawge when you need him. Him is de JAMAL expert

[Mosiah]

language, tongue, whatever, the fact is patwa is our first tongue.

[Baddaz]

good points... that is why i said yesterday, we may be asking the wrong questions about the problem and looking up the wrong avenue...

i strongly believe that the problem is not the instructing or communicating in english nor do i believe english is the problem...

[Muadib]

What is the point of declaring English as the primary language in Jamaica if the majority do not speak it ???

Kinda nonsensical.

[Lazie]

... the Everything Jamaica Forum has diminished into a comedy club? Whats this obsession about teaching in patwah (patwa, patois ... and mi certain Karl have bout 3 more spelling fi add to the list). How is that going to move us forward as a country?

We need to focus on how our students can do better in school so they can either go to college or join the labour foce. Mi ask unuh a question. Unuh a conduct an interview fi an opening and the applicant is very fluent in patios but is all over the place with the english language ... what unuh ago duh?

[Lazie]

What is the point of declaring English as the primary language in Jamaica if the majority do not speak it ???

Kinda nonsensical.

No .. the nonsensical move is what you, Mosiah and others are proposing.

[Baddaz]

this is getting crazy... i believe the majority of jamaicans speak english... all jamaicans understand english...

the majority of jamaicans write english... all jamaicans who are literate can read and write english...

the MAJORITY of jamaicans CANNOT read or write patois... explain dat tuh mi...

[Muadib]

I think the theory is students can do better in school if they are taught in their first language.

[Gamma]

den call mi name to nuh? mi feel slighted by having to be included as "others"