Centuries of historical baggage surrounds this form of speech. But I’m vowing to overcome shame and connect with this part of my culture ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. A teacher points to a blackboard in a school in Jamaica. As Jamaica continues to loosen its ties with the British monarchy, ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. But what about language? This was the problem that Saffron Jackson, a 38-year-old Jamaican teacher living in the United Kingdom, ...

Jamaica has in recent times had a vigorous debate on the use of Patois (pronounced Patwa) as its official language, replacing English. This view has been fueled by poor results in CSEC English exams, ...

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 ...

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 ...

(Jamaica Gleaner) Coordinator of the Jamaican Language Unit at The University of the West Indies, Mona, Dr Joseph Farquharson, has asserted that there is still a stigma attached to Patois, otherwise ...

While almost all Jamaicans speak both English and Patois, the latter is not an official language and is seldom written down. A new effort by the New York-based Jamaica Patois Media is looking to ...

Nekeisha Burchell knew beforehand that opening her intervention in Parliament’s Sectoral Debate in Jamaican Patois (Jamiekan) would elicit a reminder from Speaker Juliet Holness that Patois was not ...