Speak Jamaican

Jamaican Patois, known locally as Patois (Patwa) or simply Jamaican, is an EnglishAfrican creole language spoken primarily in Jamaica and the Jamaican diaspora. It is not to be confused with Jamaican English nor with the Rastafarian use of English. The language developed in the 17th century, when slaves from West and Central Africa were exposed to, learned and nativized the vernacular and dialectal forms of English spoken by their masters: British Englishes (including significant exposure to Scottish English) and Hiberno English. Jamaican Patois is a post-creole speech continuum (a linguistic continuum)[1][2][3]—meaning that 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) nor even from the most divergent rural varieties (collectively referred to as the basilect). Jamaicans themselves usually refer to their language as patois, a French term without a precise linguistic definition.