Do you want to report "Patois government/official signs and notices"
Hello r/jamaica, I hope your day is going well. I'm doing some research at the moment around language use, and I've been searching for videos/images on the internet of times when Patois has been used in an "official" capacity, e.g. covid lockdown notices, news readers, etc. However, it's proven pretty fruitless. Can anybody here send me an example or point me in the direction of one please?
Usually it’s a mix of Patois and English, especially for PSAs and slogans like this and this
Check out the Jamaica Constabulary Force’s FB page. Plenty examples there from their new marketing campaign.
Edited to add examples here, here, here and here.
I came here to point you to the JCF ads but someone already pointed out their FB page. Here’s an example from their IG page which you can check out too ad
So your saying if I speak poor Spanish or French it suddenly becomes a new language. Interesting take however I don’t see it considering the syntax of a Irish or Scottish accents doesn’t turn it into a new language. It’s a regional dialect at best
It’s a different syntax then switch to there are so many ancient African words. What percentage is unique? Because most of the word I use in patios are English the percentage of unique patois words and you can add in your “African” words, it’s not that many. You are like the people who claim Spanglish is a new language.
What percentage of English is unique?
You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what constitutes a language and how different languages are identified.
Here is a diagram/chart of words that are common is different languages across continents and epochs.
Most languages are far from unique.
An example of linguistic similarity across languages are Spanish and Portuguese. Both are usually intelligible to speakers of either, however I haven’t met anybody who would argue that they are the same language or a poorly spoken version of either language.
As for Spanglish, outside of the Adam Sandler movie, I’m unfamiliar with it, however if people who speak and understand it say it’s a different language who am I to disagree?
You literally asked me “what percentage is unique” and my reply outlined why that is not a marker with which to differentiate between languages.
How is that not the point of the current conversation?
And in reply to your first sentence - I couldn’t translate my answer into patois as I don’t speak/write it, I can only understand it.
Why are you so invested in patois not being a language that you require me to whip up a dissertation (with data points no less 😆 ) on how it is?
To be blunt I’m not getting paid to educate internet strangers or change the minds of the intractable. I’ve outlined my reasoning and you are free to accept or disregard them as you see fit.
Suffice to say I believe there is enough empirical evidence for patois to be classified as a language and you don’t.
Walk good, my man, walk good.
Wrong again. In addition to speaking English with an accent, the Scottish and Irish speak Gaelic and Celtic. Much like how many Jamaicans speak English with an accent in addition to Patois. It’s not that hard. Like I love how confidently incorrect you have been while continuously doubling down.
Yes and when I mention nom de plum when speaking English it turns English into franglais. It’s still English even when I adopt foreign language names and meaning people use references from other language constantly in their main language. You need to show me all the unique patois words, so the work? Stop run your mouth and produce those words with your thesaurus.
That’s an invalid point. English isn’t made up of unique words, so why would patois have to be. In fact, English is primarily borrowed from other languages.
You asked how many unique words we have in Patois and I replied “Nuff.” To which your reply was “keep watching Fox News.” Which you think was a huzzah moment, but was quite the contrary. So I should expect if I produce all the words you will just continue to act in bad faith wid some fenke fenke argument.
