Jamaican Patois ( / ˈ p æ t w ɑː / ; locally rendered Patwah and called Jamaican Creole by linguists) is an English-based creole language with influences from West African and other languages, spoken primarily in Jamaica and among the Jamaican diaspora . Words or slang from Jamaican Patois can be heard in other Caribbean countries, the United Kingdom, New York City and Miami in the United States, and Toronto, Canada. The majority of non-English words in Patois derive from the West African Akan language . It is spoken by the majority of Jamaicans as a native language .
77-474: The prime minister of Jamaica ( Jamaican Patois : prime minista a jamaica ) is Jamaica 's head of government , currently Andrew Holness . Holness, as leader of the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), was sworn in as prime minister on 7 September 2020, having been re-elected as a result of the JLP's landslide victory in the 2020 Jamaican general election . The prime minister is formally appointed into office by
154-400: A creole continuum (or a linguistic continuum ): the variety of the language closest to the lexifier language (the acrolect ) cannot be distinguished systematically from intermediate varieties (collectively referred to as the mesolect ) or even from the most divergent rural varieties (collectively referred to as the basilect ). This situation came about with contact between speakers of
231-469: A . These are not verbs , but rather invariant particles that cannot stand alone (like the English to be ). Their function also differs from those of English. According to Bailey (1966), the progressive category is marked by /a~da~de/ . Alleyne (1980) claims that /a~da/ marks the progressive and that the habitual aspect is unmarked but by its accompaniment with words such as "always", "usually", etc. (i.e.
308-480: A Jamaican woman ( Lois Kelly Miller ). In addition, early Jamaican films like The Harder They Come (1972), Rockers (1978), and many of the films produced by Palm Pictures in the mid-1990s (e.g. Dancehall Queen and Third World Cop ) have most of their dialogue in Jamaican Patois; some of these films have even been subtitled in English. It was also used in the second season of Marvel's Luke Cage but
385-404: A Moroccan speaking with a Kuwaiti), they are able to code switch into MSA for the sake of communication. The Aramaic language has been diglossic for much of its history, with many different literary standards serving as the "high" liturgical languages, including Syriac language , Jewish Palestinian Aramaic , Jewish Babylonian Aramaic , Samaritan Aramaic language and Mandaic language , while
462-504: A dictionary, and several local newspapers. Persian or New Persian has been used continually as the literary language of major areas in Western Asia , the Caucasus , Central Asia and South Asia . The language written today remains essentially the same as that used by Ferdowsi despite variant colloquial dialects and forms. For many centuries, people belonging to the educated classes from
539-490: A diglossic continuum. The formal style is generally used in formal writing and speech. It is, for example, the language of textbooks, of much of Kannada literature and of public speaking and debate. Novels, even popular ones, will use the literary style for all description and narration and use the colloquial form only for dialogue, if they use it at all. In recent times, however, the modern colloquial form has been making inroads into areas that have traditionally been considered
616-408: A literary variant, literary Finnish, and a spoken variant, spoken Finnish . Both are considered a form of non-dialectal standard language, and are used throughout the country. Literary Finnish is a consciously created fusion of dialects for use as a literary language, which is rarely spoken at all, being confined to writing and official speeches. The Georgian language has a literary liturgical form,
693-468: A modern colloquial form. These styles shade into each other, forming a diglossic continuum. The modern literary style is generally used in formal writing and speech. It is, for example, the language of textbooks, of much of Tamil literature and of public speaking and debate. Novels, even popular ones, will use the literary style for all description and narration and use the colloquial form only for dialogue, if they use it at all. In recent times, however,
770-720: A move would undermine efforts at promoting the use of English. The Patois New Testament was launched in Britain (where the Jamaican diaspora is significant) in October 2012 as " Di Jamiekan Nyuu Testiment ", and with print and audio versions in Jamaica in December 2012. The system of spelling used in Di Jamiekan Nyuu Testiment is the phonetic Cassidy Writing system adopted by
847-462: A number of Niger–Congo languages and various dialects of English, the latter of which were all perceived as prestigious and whose use carried socio-economic benefits. The span of a speaker's command of the continuum generally corresponds to social context. The tense/aspect system of Jamaican Patois is fundamentally unlike that of English. There are no morphologically marked past participles ; instead, two different participle words exist: en and
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#1732880245842924-683: A term also used as a lower-case noun as a catch-all description of pidgins , creoles, dialects , and vernaculars worldwide. Creoles, including Jamaican Patois, are often stigmatized as low- prestige languages even when spoken as the mother tongue by the majority of the local population. Jamaican pronunciation and vocabulary are significantly different from English despite heavy use of English words or derivatives. Significant Jamaican Patois-speaking communities exist among Jamaican expatriates and non Jamaican in South Florida , New York City , Hartford , Washington, D.C. , Nicaragua , Costa Rica ,
1001-428: A tone, it can also be known as formal language . It may be the standardized variety of a language. It can sometimes differ noticeably from the various spoken lects , but the difference between literary and non-literary forms is greater in some languages than in others. If there is a strong divergence between a written form and the spoken vernacular , the language is said to exhibit diglossia . The understanding of
1078-465: A variety of dialects (including the Żejtun dialect , Qormi dialect and Gozitan amongst others) that co-exist alongside Standard Maltese. Literary Maltese, unlike Standard Maltese, features a preponderance of Semitic vocabulary and grammatical patterns; however, this traditional separation between Semitic and Romance influences in Maltese literature (especially Maltese poetry and Catholic liturgy on
1155-556: Is absent as a grammatical category). Mufwene (1984) and Gibson and Levy (1984) propose a past-only habitual category marked by /juusta/ as in /weɹ wi juusta liv iz not az kual az iiɹ/ ('where we used to live is not as cold as here'). For the present tense, an uninflected verb combining with an iterative adverb marks habitual meaning as in /tam aawez nua wen kieti tel pan im/ ('Tom always knows when Katy tells/has told about him'). As in other Caribbean Creoles (that is, Guyanese Creole and San Andrés-Providencia Creole ; Sranan Tongo
1232-414: Is also considered a profanity. A rich body of literature has developed in Jamaican Patois. Notable among early authors and works are Thomas MacDermot 's All Jamaica Library and Claude McKay 's Songs of Jamaica (1909), and, more recently, dub poets Linton Kwesi Johnson and Mikey Smith . Subsequently, the life-work of Louise Bennett or Miss Lou (1919–2006) is particularly notable for her use of
1309-493: Is closely based on the Classical language, and most Arabs consider the two varieties to be two registers of the same language. Literary Arabic or classical Arabic is the official language of all Arab countries and is the only form of Arabic taught in schools at all stages . The sociolinguistic situation of Arabic in modern times provides a prime example of the linguistic phenomenon of diglossia —the use of two distinct varieties of
1386-403: Is excluded) /fi/ has a number of functions, including: The pronominal system of Standard English has a four-way distinction of person , number , gender and case . Some varieties of Jamaican Patois do not have the gender or case distinction, but all varieties distinguish between the second person singular and plural (you). This is akin to Spanish in that both have two distinct forms of
1463-567: Is the country's national language and one of two official languages, alongside English. Today, Filipino is considered the proper term for the language of the Philippines, especially by Filipino-speakers who are not of Tagalog origin, with many referring to the Filipino language as "Tagalog-based". The language is taught in schools throughout the country and is the official language of education and business. Native Tagalog-speakers meanwhile comprise one of
1540-717: The Bosphorus to the Bay of Bengal would be expected to know some Persian. It was once the language of culture (especially of poetry), from the Balkans to the Deccan , functioning as a lingua franca . Until the late 18th century, Persian was the dominant literary language of Georgia 's elite. Persian was the second major vehicle after Arabic in transmitting Islamic culture and has a particularly prominent place in Sufism. Slavonic-Serbian ( slavenosrpski )
1617-539: The Cayman Islands , and Panama , as well as Toronto , London , Birmingham , Manchester , and Nottingham . The Cayman Islands in particular have a very large Jamaican Patois-speaking community, with 16.4% of the population conversing in the language. A mutually intelligible variety is found in San Andrés y Providencia Islands, Colombia, brought to the island by descendants of Jamaican Maroons (escaped slaves) in
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#17328802458421694-726: The Classical period , it was the language of the Mai State , Tondo Dynasty (according to the Laguna Copperplate Inscription ) and southern Luzon . It was written using Baybayin , a syllabary which is a member of the Brahmic family, before the Spanish Romanised the alphabet beginning in the late 15th century. Tagalog was also the spoken language of the 1896 Philippine Revolution . The 1987 Constitution maintains that Filipino
1771-634: The Igbo language . Red eboe describes a fair-skinned black person because of the reported account of fair skin among the Igbo in the mid-1700s. De meaning to be (at a location) comes from Yoruba . From the Ashanti-Akan, comes the term Obeah which means witchcraft, from the Ashanti Twi word Ɔbayi which also means "witchcraft". Words from Hindi include ganja (marijuana). Pickney or pickiney meaning child, taken from an earlier form ( piccaninny )
1848-491: The Javanese language , alphabet characters derived from the alphabets used to write Sanskrit , no longer in ordinary use, are used in literary words as a mark of respect. Kannada exhibits a strong diglossia , like Tamil , also characterised by three styles: a classical literary style modelled on the ancient language, a modern literary and formal style, and a modern colloquial form. These styles shade into each other, forming
1925-753: The Mande languages of West Africa . It blends the principal elements of the partially mutually intelligible Manding languages . The movement promoting N'Ko literacy was instrumental in shaping the Maninka cultural identity in Guinea, and has also strengthened the Mande identity in other parts of West Africa. N'Ko publications include a translation of the Qur'an , a variety of textbooks on subjects such as physics and geography , poetic and philosophical works, descriptions of traditional medicine,
2002-891: The Meiji period , some authors started to use the colloquial form of the language in their literature. Following the government policy after the World War II , the standard form of contemporary Japanese language is used for most literature published since the 1950s. The standard language is based on the colloquial language in Tokyo area, and its literary stylistics in polite form differs little from its formal speech. Notable characteristics of literary language in contemporary Japanese would include more frequent use of Chinese origin words, less use of expressions against prescriptive grammar (such as " ら抜き言葉 "), and use of non-polite normal form (" -だ / -である ") stylistics that are rarely used in colloquial language. In
2079-512: The Old Georgian language , while the vernacular spoken varieties are the Georgian dialects and other related Kartvelian languages like Svan language , Mingrelian language , and Laz language . German differentiates between Hochdeutsch / Standarddeutsch ( Standard German ) and Umgangssprache (everyday/vernacular language). Amongst the differences is the regular use of the genitive case or
2156-644: The Präteritum is considered somewhat declamatory. The German Konjunktiv I / II ("er habe" / "er hätte") is also used more regularly in written form being replaced by the conditional ("er würde geben") in spoken language, although in some southern German dialects the Konjunktiv II is used more often. Generally there is a continuum between more dialectical varieties to more standard varieties in German, while colloquial German nonetheless tends to increase analytic elements at
2233-491: The governor general , who represents King Charles III . The prime minister of Jamaica's official residence is Vale Royal . The property was constructed in 1694 by the planter Sir William Taylor, who was one of the richest men in Jamaica at the time. In 1928 the property was sold to the government and became the official residence of the British colonial secretary (then Sir Reginald Edward Stubbs). Vale Royal has subsequently become
2310-562: The spoken language . At the same time, Literary Chinese was based largely upon the Classical Chinese, and writers frequently borrowed from the classical language into their literary writings. Literary Chinese therefore shows a great deal of similarity to Classical Chinese, even though the similarity decreased over the centuries. Starting from early 20th century, written vernacular Chinese ( simplified Chinese : 白话文 ; traditional Chinese : 白話文 ; pinyin : báihuàwén ) became
2387-460: The 17th century are defined as prototype mediums of literary English and are taught in advanced English classes. Furthermore, many literary words that are used today are found in abundance in the works of Shakespeare and as well as in King James Bible, hence the literary importance of early modern English in contemporary English literature and English studies . Modern Standard Arabic is
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2464-487: The 17th century when enslaved people from West and Central Africa were exposed to, learned, and nativized the vernacular and dialectal language spoken by the slaveholders and overseers: British English , Hiberno-English and Scots . Jamaican Creole exists in gradations between more conservative creole forms that are not significantly mutually intelligible with English, and forms virtually identical to Standard English . Jamaicans refer to their language as Patois ,
2541-774: The 18th century. Mesolectal forms are similar to very basilectal Belizean Kriol . Jamaican Patois exists mainly as a spoken language and is also heavily used for musical purposes, especially in reggae and dancehall as well as other genres. Although standard British English is used for most writing in Jamaica, Jamaican Patois has gained ground as a literary language for almost a hundred years. Claude McKay published his book of Jamaican poems Songs of Jamaica in 1912. Patois and English are frequently used for stylistic contrast ( codeswitching ) in new forms of Internet writing. Accounts of basilectal Jamaican Patois (that is, its most divergent rural varieties) suggest around 21 phonemic consonants with an additional phoneme ( /h/ ) in
2618-634: The 1960s, the status of Jamaican Patois rose as a number of respected linguistic studies were published, by Frederic Cassidy (1961, 1967), Bailey (1966) and others. Subsequently, it has gradually become mainstream to codemix or write complete pieces in Jamaican Patois; proponents include Kamau Brathwaite , who also analyses the position of Creole poetry in his History of the Voice: The Development of Nation Language in Anglophone Caribbean Poetry (1984). However, Standard English remains
2695-719: The 3rd century AD, while Vulgar Latin was the common, spoken variety used across the Roman Empire . The Latin brought by Roman soldiers to Gaul , Iberia , or Dacia was not identical to the Latin of Cicero , and differed from it in vocabulary, syntax, and grammar. Some literary works with low-register language from the Classical Latin period give a glimpse into the world of early Vulgar Latin. The works of Plautus and Terence , being comedies with many characters who were slaves , preserve some early basilectal Latin features, as does
2772-743: The Father of the Forest (2015), British-Trinidadian author Wayne Gerard Trotman presents dialogue in Trinidadian Creole , Jamaican Patois, and French while employing Standard English for narrative prose. Jamaican Patois is also presented in some films and other media, such as for example the character Tia Dalma 's speech from Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest , and a few scenes in Meet Joe Black in which Brad Pitt 's character converses with
2849-643: The Jamaica Language Unit of the University of the West Indies, and while most Jamaicans use the informal "Miss Lou" writing system, the Cassidy Writing system is an effort at standardizing Patois in its written form. Literary language Literary language is the form (register) of a language used when writing in a formal, academic , or particularly polite tone; when speaking or writing in such
2926-580: The Western dialect. There are between nine and sixteen vowels . Some vowels are capable of nasalization and others can be lengthened. Examples of palatalization include: Voiced stops are implosive whenever in the onset of prominent syllables (especially word-initially) so that /biit/ ('beat') is pronounced [ɓiːt] and /ɡuud/ ('good') as [ɠuːd] . Before a syllabic /l/ , the contrast between alveolar and velar consonants has been historically neutralized with alveolar consonants becoming velar so that
3003-602: The accents were described as "awful" by Jamaican Americans. In December 2011, it was reported that the Bible was being translated into Jamaican Patois. The Gospel of Luke has already appeared as Jiizas: di Buk We Luuk Rait bout Im . While the Rev. Courtney Stewart, managing the translation as General Secretary of the West Indies Bible Society, believes this will help elevate the status of Jamaican Patois, others think that such
3080-485: The contemporary literary and standard register of Classical Arabic used in writing across all Arabic -speaking countries and any governing body with Arabic as an official language. Many western scholars distinguish two varieties: the Classical Arabic of the Qur'an and early Islamic (7th to 9th centuries) literature ; and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), the standard language in use today. The modern standard language
3157-446: The expense of synthetic elements . From the early nineteenth century until the mid-20th century, Katharevousa , a form of Greek , was used for literary purposes. In later years, Katharevousa was used only for official and formal purposes (such as politics, letters, official documents, and newscasting) while Dimotiki , 'demotic' or popular Greek, was the daily language. This created a diglossic situation until in 1976, Dimotiki
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3234-655: The high register in Mongolia itself while in Inner Mongolia a standard Mongolian based on Chakhar Mongolian serves as the high register for all Mongols in China. The Buryat language, which is seen by some as part of the Mongolian language, has been turned into a standard literary form itself in Russia. N'Ko is a literary language devised by Solomana Kante in 1949 as a writing system for
3311-474: The island) is changing. Standard Manchu was based on the language spoken by the Jianzhou Jurchens during Nurhaci's time, while other unwritten Manchu dialects such as that of Aigun and Sanjiazi were also spoken in addition to the related Xibe language . The Classical Mongolian language was the high register used for religious and official purposes, while the various Mongolian dialects served as
3388-465: The language, with the aim of supporting non-English-speaking Jamaicans according to their constitutional guarantees of equal rights, as services of the state are normally provided in English, which a significant portion of the population cannot speak fluently. The vast majority of such persons are speakers of Jamaican Patois. It was argued that failure to provide services of the state in a language in such general use or discriminatory treatment by officers of
3465-477: The largest linguistic and cultural groups of the Philippines, numbering an estimated 14 million. Notably, in Eastern European and Slavic linguistics, the term "literary language" has also been used as a synonym of " standard language ". Tamil exhibits a strong diglossia , characterised by three styles: a classical literary style modelled on the ancient language, a modern literary and formal style and
3542-612: The literary standard and had the Uzbek language standardized as a literary language for, and the Taranchi dialect of Ili was chosen as the literary standard for Modern Uyghur, while other dialects like the Kashgar and Turpan dialects continue to be spoken. Standard Yoruba is the literary form of the Yoruba language of West Africa , the standard variety learnt at school and that spoken by newsreaders on
3619-572: The literary standard. This is mostly aligned with a standardized form of Mandarin Chinese , which however means there exists considerable divergence between written vernacular Chinese and other Chinese variants like Cantonese , Shanghainese , Hokkien and Sichuanese . Some of these variants have their own literary form, but none of them are currently used in official formal registers, although they may be used in legal transcription, and in certain media and entertainment settings. The Finnish language has
3696-632: The low register, like Khalkha Mongolian , Chakhar Mongolian , Khorchin Mongolian , Kharchin Mongolian , Baarin Mongolian , Ordos Mongolian and the Buryat language . The Tibetan Buddhist canon was translated into Classical Mongolian. The Oirat Mongols who spoke the Oirat Mongol language and dialects like Kalmyk language or Torgut Oirat used a separate standard written with the Clear script . The Mongolian language , based on Khalkha Mongolian, now serves as
3773-789: The modern colloquial form has been making inroads into areas that have traditionally been considered the province of the modern literary style: for instance most cinema , theatre and popular entertainment on television and radio. Classical Tibetan was the high register used universally by all Tibetans while the various mutually unintelligible Tibetic languages serve as the low register vernacular, like Central Tibetan language in Ü-Tsang (Tibet proper), Khams Tibetan in Kham , Amdo Tibetan in Amdo , Ladakhi language in Ladakh and Dzongkha in Bhutan . Classical Tibetan
3850-822: The more prestigious literary medium in Jamaican literature . Canadian-Caribbean science-fiction novelist Nalo Hopkinson often writes in Trinidadian and sometimes Jamaican Patois. Jean D'Costa penned a series of popular children's novels, including Sprat Morrison (1972; 1990), Escape to Last Man Peak (1976), and Voice in the Wind (1978), which draw liberally from Jamaican Patois for dialogue, while presenting narrative prose in Standard English. Marlon James employs Patois in his novels including A Brief History of Seven Killings (2014). In his science fiction novel Kaya Abaniah and
3927-563: The official and literary languages, and standardized literary English did not emerge until the end of the Middle Ages . At this time and into the Renaissance , the practice of aureation (the introduction of terms from classical languages , often through poetry) was an important part of the reclamation of status for the English language, and many historically aureate terms are now part of general common usage . Modern English no longer has quite
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#17328802458424004-685: The official residence of the prime minister. Vale Royal is not open to the public. Jamaica House has been the location of the Office of the Prime Minister since 1972. Prime ministers resided there from 1964 until 1980. On 8 November 2022, Prime Minister Andrew Holness said in question time that his official residence was Jamaica House rather than Vale Royal, and that that Vale Royal was currently in disrepair and possible future uses would be considered after its restoration. Key: † Died in office Jamaican Patois language Patois developed in
4081-923: The political fragmentation of the time. Now, it is the standard language of Italy. Until the late 1940s, the prominent literary language in Japan was the Classical Japanese language ( 文語 , bungo ) , which is based on the language spoken in Heian period ( Late Old Japanese ) and is different from the contemporary Japanese language in grammar and some vocabulary. It still has relevance for historians, literary scholars, and lawyers (many Japanese laws that survived World War II are still written in bungo , although there are ongoing efforts to modernize their language). Bungo grammar and vocabulary are occasionally used in modern Japanese for effect, and fixed form poetries like Haiku and Tanka are still mainly written in this form. In
4158-458: The popular language, known as Serbo-Croatian . Tagalog was the basis of the Filipino language ; both share the same vocabulary and grammatical system and are mutually intelligible. However, there is a significant political and social history that underlies the reasons for differentiating between Tagalog and Filipino. Modern Tagalog is derived from Archaic Tagalog , which was likely spoken during
4235-413: The province of the modern literary style: for instance most cinema , theatre and popular entertainment on television and radio. There are also many dialects of Kannada, Which are Dharwad Kannada of North Karnataka , Arebhashe of Dakshina Kannada and Kodagu, Kundakannada of Kundapura, Havyaka Kannada are major dialects. Classical Latin was the literary register used in writing from 75 BC to
4312-471: The radio. Standard Yoruba has its origin in the 1850s, when Samuel A. Crowther , native Yoruba and the first African Anglican Bishop in Nigeria, published a Yoruba grammar and started his translation of the Bible. Though for a large part based on the Ọyọ and Ibadan dialects, Standard Yoruba incorporates several features from other dialects. Additionally, it has some features peculiar to itself only, for example
4389-638: The recorded speech of the freedmen in the Cena Trimalchionis by Petronius Arbiter . At the Third Council of Tours in 813, priests were ordered to preach in the vernacular language—either in the rustica lingua romanica (Vulgar Latin), or in the Germanic vernaculars —since the common people could no longer understand formal Latin. The Malay language exists in a classical variety, two modern standard variety and several vernacular dialects. Maltese has
4466-490: The rich colorful patois, despite being shunned by traditional literary groups. "The Jamaican Poetry League excluded her from its meetings, and editors failed to include her in anthologies." Nonetheless, she argued forcefully for the recognition of Jamaican as a full language, with the same pedigree as the dialect from which Standard English had sprung: Dah language weh yuh proud a, Weh yuh honour an respec – Po Mas Charlie, yuh no know se Dat it spring from dialec! After
4543-419: The same distinction between literary and colloquial registers. English has been used as a literary language in countries that were formerly part of the British Empire , for instance in India up to the present day, Malaysia in the early 20th century and Nigeria , where English remains the official language. Written in Early Modern English , the King James Bible and works by William Shakespeare from
4620-481: The same language, usually in different social contexts. Educated Arabic speakers are usually able to communicate in MSA in formal situations. This diglossic situation facilitates code-switching in which a speaker switches back and forth between the two varieties of the language, sometimes even within the same sentence. In instances in which highly educated Arabic-speakers of different nationalities engage in conversation but find their dialects mutually unintelligible (e.g.
4697-406: The sense of "he told me that..." = /im tel mi se/ ), taken from Ashanti Twi , and duppy meaning ghost , taken from the Twi word dupon ('cotton tree root'), because of the African belief of malicious spirits originating in the roots of trees (in Jamaica and Ghana, particularly the cotton tree known in both places as "Odom"). The pronoun /unu/ , used for the plural form of you , is taken from
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#17328802458424774-399: The simple past tense Präteritum in written language. In vernacular German, genitive phrases ("des Tages") are frequently replaced with a construction of "von" + dative object ("von dem Tag") - comparable to English "the dog's tail" vs. "the tail of the dog" - likewise the Präteritum ("ich ging") can be substituted with the perfect ("ich bin gegangen") to a certain degree. Nevertheless,
4851-478: The standard official language learned are now the unrelated languages Urdu and English, and in Baltistan , the Tibetan Balti language serves as the low register while the unrelated Urdu is the official language. The Turkic Chagatai language served as the high register literary standard for Central Asian Turkic peoples, while the vernacular low register languages were the Uzbek language and Eastern Turki (Modern Uyghur) . The Soviet Union abolished Chagatai as
4928-912: The state based on the inability of a citizen to use English violates the rights of citizens. The proposal was made that freedom from discrimination on the ground of language be inserted into the Charter of Rights. They standardized the Jamaican alphabet as follows: Nasal vowels are written with -hn , as in kyaahn (can't) and iihn (isn't it?) h is written according to local pronunciation, so that hen (hen) and en (end) are distinguished in writing for speakers of western Jamaican, but not for those of central Jamaican. Jamaican Patois contains many loanwords , most of which are African in origin, primarily from Twi (a dialect of Akan ). Many loanwords come from English, but some are also borrowed from Spanish , Portuguese , Hindi , Arawak and African languages , as well as Scottish and Irish dialects. Examples from African languages include /se/ meaning that (in
5005-437: The term differs from one linguistic tradition to another and is dependent on the terminological conventions adopted. For much of its history, there has been a distinction in the English language between an elevated literary language (written) and a colloquial or vernacular language (spoken, but sometimes also represented in writing). After the Norman conquest of England , for instance, Latin and French displaced English as
5082-417: The two forms are identical; differing forms, such as verb conjugations, are easily converted from one form to another. However, the vocabulary is quite different from one form to the other and must be learned separately. Among the works of Rabindranath Tagore are examples of both shadhubhasha (especially among his earlier works) and chôlitôbhasha (especially among his later works). The national anthem of India
5159-404: The use of neither the Präteritum nor especially the genitive case is totally unusual in daily language, though it is considered rare, and might be dependent on a region's dialect and/or the grade of education of the speaker. People of higher education use the genitive more regularly in their casual speech and the use of perfect instead of Präteritum is especially common in southern Germany, where
5236-409: The verb "to be" – ser and estar – in which ser is equative and estar is locative. Other languages, such as Portuguese and Italian, make a similar distinction (see also: Romance Copula ) . Patois has long been written with various respellings compared to English so that, for example, the word "there" might be written ⟨de⟩ , ⟨deh⟩ , or ⟨dere⟩ , and
5313-562: The vernacular Neo-Aramaic languages serve as the vernacular language spoken by the common people like Northeastern Neo-Aramaic ( Assyrian Neo-Aramaic , Bohtan Neo-Aramaic , Chaldean Neo-Aramaic , Hértevin language , Koy Sanjaq Syriac language , Senaya language ), Western Neo-Aramaic , Northeastern Neo-Aramaic , Central Neo-Aramaic ( Mlahsô language , Turoyo language ), Neo-Mandaic , Hulaulá language , Lishana Deni , Lishanid Noshan , Lishán Didán , Betanure Jewish Neo-Aramaic , and Barzani Jewish Neo-Aramaic . The Armenian language
5390-414: The word "three" as ⟨tree⟩ , ⟨tri⟩ , or ⟨trii⟩ . Standard English spelling is often used and a nonstandard spelling sometimes becomes widespread even though it is neither phonetic nor standard (e.g. ⟨pickney⟩ for /pikni/ , 'child'). In 2002, the Jamaican Language Unit was set up at the University of the West Indies at Mona to begin standardizing
5467-525: The word for 'bottle' is /bakl̩/ and the word for 'idle' is /aiɡl̩/ . Jamaican Patois exhibits two types of vowel harmony ; peripheral vowel harmony, wherein only sequences of peripheral vowels (that is, /i/ , /u/ , and /a/ ) can occur within a syllable; and back harmony, wherein /i/ and /u/ cannot occur within a syllable together (that is, /uu/ and /ii/ are allowed but * /ui/ and * /iu/ are not). These two phenomena account for three long vowels and four diphthongs : Jamaican Patois features
5544-518: Was a diglossic language for much of its history, with Classical Armenian serving as the "high" literary standard and liturgical language, and the Western Armenian and Eastern Armenian dialects serving as the vernacular language of the Armenian people. Western Armenian and Eastern Armenian were eventually standardized into their own literary forms. Standard Bengali has two forms: Grammatically,
5621-570: Was made the official language. During the revival of the Hebrew language , spoken and literary Hebrew were revived separately, causing a dispersion between the two. The dispersion started to narrow sometime after the two movements merged, but substantial differences between the two still exist. When Italy unified in 1860, Italian existed mainly as a literary language. Different languages were spoken throughout Italy, almost all of which were Romance languages which had developed in every region, due to
5698-458: Was originally written in the shadhubhasha form of Bengali. Literary Chinese ( 文言文 ; wényánwén ; 'written-speech writing') is the form of written Chinese used from the end of the Han dynasty to the early 20th century. Literary Chinese continually diverged from Classical Chinese , as the dialects of China became more disparate and as the classical written language became less representative of
5775-501: Was the literary language of Serbs in the Habsburg monarchy used from the mid-18th century to 1825. It was a linguistic blend of Church Slavonic of the Russian recension, vernacular Serbian ( Štokavian dialect ), and Russian . At the beginning of the 19th century, it was severely attacked by Vuk Karadžić and his followers, whose reformatory efforts formed modern literary Serbian based on
5852-653: Was ultimately borrowed from the Portuguese pequenino (the diminutive of pequeno , small) or Spanish pequeño ('small'). There are many words referring to popular produce, food items, and Jamaican cuisine — ackee , callaloo , guinep , bammy , roti , dal , kamranga . Jamaican Patois has its own rich variety of swearwords . One of the strongest is bloodclaat (along with related forms raasclaat , bomboclaat , pussyclaat and others)—compare with bloody in Australian English and British English , which
5929-665: Was used for official and religious purposes, such as in Tibetan Buddhist religious texts like the Tibetan Buddhist canon and taught and learned in monasteries and schools in Tibetan Buddhist regions. Now, Standard Tibetan , based on the Lhasa dialect, serves as the high register in China. In Bhutan, the Tibetan Dzongkha language has been standardised and replaced Classical Tibetan for official purposes and education, in Ladakh ,
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