What's worse than a bad movie? If you ask linguist Joseph Farquharson, he might say a movie that makes a caricature of the distinct patois of Jamaican accents. When asked to be an advisor on the new ...

Beloved educator, linguist, writer and poet Velma Pollard, known for her passion for Jamaica's Patwa language, passed away at her Kingston home on February 1 at the age of 87, leaving the regional ...

Even as a child, I had some understanding of the complex history that shaped attitudes towards Patwa, which is spoken by an estimated 2.5 million people as a first language and millions more from the ...

KINGSTON, Jamaica — Walk into any government office, courtroom or classroom in Jamaica, and you’ll be expected to speak the official language, English. But venture into the street, tune into a radio ...

We may not think of Jamaica as a bilingual society, but local bloggers are assuring us that it is. English and Patois—or Patwa, as it's often written—are widely spoken, but the Jamaican mother ...