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The article offers information on the Jamaican creole which is known as Patwa or Patois. It states that since Jamaica is English-speaking only, it means that Patwa does not have an official status and no legitimacy in public institutions. It mentions that inspite of being unofficial, it is presented in these institutions through people for whom it is a dominant language.

This papers investigates the representation of the variability characteristics of the post-creole continuum of Jamaica in literature, and it discusses theoretical ramifications concerning the nature of an author's 'pan-lectal' competence. Based upon Thelwell's novel The Harder They Come and set against the background of theoretical statements on literary dialect, the origin of the novel, and the Jamaican culture which it represents, the variability of literary dialect is investigated by two complementary types of approaches: a quantitative sociolinguistic analysis of three phonological and 13 morphological variables of Jamaican Creole as represented in the speech of 14 fictive characters, and a qualitative documentation of the style-shifting employed by some of these characters. The results show that Thelwell's literary representation of the Jamaican speech continuum is remarkably accurate and in line with the findings of fieldwork-based sociolinguistic studies. A wide range of variation between basilect and acrolect is convincingly represented in the novel, with the characters' idiolects correlating with their socioeconomic status and with situational parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is about contact. Kingston, the capital of Jamaica, is presented as a contact setting in an urban environment, and use is made of the components of the setting to analyse the influences on the formation of basilectal varieties there. In this paper, focus is, on the role which external ecologies played in the early development of the lectal varieties closest to the basilect in Kingston. The study tracks the peopling of Kingston from its formation to the Morant Bay Rebellion. It is divided sectionally by period and focuses on the role which external ecologies such as those mentioned above, played in the early development of the lectal varieties closest to the basilect in Kingston. Within each period, the linguistic implications of relevant aspects of the contact situation are discussed. The population growth and distribution in the 18th century, and an analysis in some detail is made of the social composition of the in-migrants who were in large part responsible for the growth experienced throughout the century. The period leading up to, and immediately following full Emancipation (1800-1865), ends the inquiry. This provides a logical end-point for the investigation since, as will become evident in the reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Questions of attitudes and identity are foregrounded in this discussion of Jamaican Creole [JC] as a language of the diaspora. It is presented as a language that challenges the standardizing impulses of modernity, resisting homogeneity in a variable and multi-layered process of change. The article follows the evolutionary path of the language through Africa and the Caribbean to London and America and shows how its speakers see, use and connect through a vernacular that mirrors and embodies the social forces, experienced. The key sites are Jamaica, largely, and urban London. Through a review of the literature, documentary analysis, interviews and classroom observations this essay examines the ways in which Jamaican Creole could be said to exemplify the diasporic predicament and the ways in which it has managed to gain dominance in a) Caribbean society, b) the wider movement of the Caribbean diaspora. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]