Jamaican Patois: grammar
The most useful thing anyone can tell you about Jamaican Patois is that it is not English spoken badly. It is a language with its own grammar, and that grammar is regular, learnable, and in several places considerably simpler than English's.
Verbs do not change shape to mark tense — separate words do that job, so there is no irregular-verb table waiting for you. Plurals are marked once, and often not at all. What English does with one verb, Patois splits into more than one depending on what follows, which feels strange for about a week and obvious afterwards. Negation, questions and emphasis all have shapes English simply does not have, and they are the shapes that make a sentence sound native rather than translated.
These guides describe those patterns plainly and with examples, using linguistic terms only where a plain word would be less clear.
5 guides
Grammar
The verb never changes: how tense works in Jamaican Patois
Patois marks tense with four small words in front of an unchanging verb. Here is what each one does, how they stack, and the order they sit in.
8 min read
Grammar
Six pronouns, no cases, and no gender in the third person
Patois pronouns never change for case, and the third person marks no gender. The full set of six, what each one covers, and how possession works.
7 min read
Grammar
How Patois marks more than one, and when it does not
Patois marks plurals with a separate word after the noun, not an ending. How dem works, when it is dropped, and why English speakers mark it twice.
5 min read
Grammar
Saying no, not and never in Jamaican Patois
Negation in Patois sits before the verb, and stacked negatives are grammatical. Nuh, neva, negative commands, and the pair kyan and cyaahn.
5 min read
Grammar
The three jobs English gives to the verb to be, and how Patois splits them
English gives one verb four jobs. Patois splits them: a before a noun, deh before a place, and nothing before an adjective. Here is how each works.
7 min read