{"id":2268,"date":"2024-09-09T09:45:09","date_gmt":"2024-09-09T13:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/?p=2268"},"modified":"2024-09-09T09:45:09","modified_gmt":"2024-09-09T13:45:09","slug":"word-of-the-week-patois","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/2024\/09\/09\/word-of-the-week-patois\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Week! Patois"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Flag<\/a>I have quite a pile of ideas from readers currently. Thank you! We will begin to work through the backlog soon, but first, student Leo Barnes has a really strong entry on a loan-word from French that I often hear in academic settings.<\/p>\n

In terms of definition, we have “regional dialect” from The OED entry<\/a>. Now I’ll turn things over to Leo:<\/p>\n

The term \u2018patois\u2019 refers to the language of the common people of a region. A patois can vary greatly from the standardized language and is usually only spoken within communities and passed down orally. It differs from pidgin which is a simplified version of a language spoken between people without a common vernacular.<\/p>\n

In French, ‘patois\u2019 means dialect though in Old French, it means clumsy or uncultivated speech. Thus, the use of the word can have a condescending overtone. Writing on the fickleness of dialectical hierarchy, linguist Jean Jaur\u00e8s notes, \u201cThe language of a vanquished people is called patois.\u201d In other words, it isn’t linguistic merit but pure might that decides who\u2019s dialect is cultivated and who\u2019s is crass.<\/p>\n

Having seen patois before in Charles Elster\u2019s weighty tome, Word Workout<\/em>, I was already aware of its first meaning. This past week, though, while working at Long Wind Organic Tomato Farm in Thetford, Vermont, I learned its second.<\/p>\n

Patois (also called Patwa) is the native language of almost three million Jamaicans including five who worked alongside me at Long Wind Farm. Patois is a Creole language derived from the English colonists who ruled Jamaica, African word borrowings, and French, Spanish, and Portuguese influences.<\/p>\n

No doubt aided by its condescending namesake, The New York Times<\/em> reports that Patois is \u201cstigmatized with second-class status and often mischaracterized as a poorly structured form of English.\u201d One balmy summer evening, while enjoying a beer and jerk chicken, I had the chance to learn some. Here are highlights:<\/p>\n

Patois: Wah Gwan
\n<\/em>Meaning: Hello<\/em><\/p>\n

Patois: De olda de moon, de brighter it shines
\n<\/em>Meaning: The older the person, the wiser, more beautiful, and vibrant they are<\/em><\/p>\n

Patois: Ya so bad luck even an empty gun would still shoot ya
\n<\/em>Meaning: You\u2019re so unlucky even a gun without bullets would harm you.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Jerk<\/a>While talks are afoot on changing Jamaica’s official language to Patois, for the foreseeable future, it will remain English. Unfortunately, like many small languages, Patois isn\u2019t available on mainstream language learning platforms. For those interested, here\u2019s a good resource to start: Jamaican Patois<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This blog will\u00a0 continue all year, so send words and metaphors of interest by e-mail (jessid -at- richmond -dot- edu) or by leaving a comment below. Also let us know if you would like to write a guest column.<\/p>\n

See all of our Metaphors of the Month\u00a0here<\/a>\u00a0and Words of the Week\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Image Source: Jamaican Flag & Jerk Chicken courtesy of Leo Barnes. I’m hungry now!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have quite a pile of ideas from readers currently. Thank you! We will begin to work through the backlog soon, but first, student Leo Barnes has a really strong entry on a loan-word from French that I often hear in academic settings. In terms of definition, we have “regional dialect” from The OED entry. … Continue reading Word of the Week! Patois<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":589,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2516,87406,40197],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-writing","category-loan-word","category-vocabulary"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcsCNV-AA","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/589"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2268"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2271,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2268\/revisions\/2271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}