Abstract | Jamaican English, one of the World Englishes, is a variety of English spoken in Jamaica. Jamaican Standard English resembles parts of both British English and American English dialects, along with many aspects of Irish intonation, but typically, it uses the same spelling as found in British English. Also, there is Jamaican Patois/Patwah or Creole which is not “Broken English”, but it is actually a combination of English, French, Various West African Languages, Spanish and many others. Topic of this paper are characteristics of Jamaican English and its comparison with Jamaican Creole in the fields of phonology, morphology, and syntax. Firstly, the brief history of Jamaican English and Creole is explained as an introduction to the further writing. Also, the examples of varied Jamaican Creole vocabulary are given with examples of the most common proverbs and sayings. This paper is divided into six parts; first part is introduction, second part is history of Jamaican English which is again divided into genesis of Carribean Creole and the background of the linguistic history of Jamaica. Third part is the phonology explained through Jamaican vowel and consonant system, and the forth part is the morphological and syntactic variation in educated Jamaican speech which is explained through syntax of direct wh-questions, copula forms, past marking, agreement marking on verbs, main verb negation, noun morphology and pronoun morphology. The last part of this paper, before the conclusion, is about Jamaican Patwah or Creole, that is, about Jamaican Creole most used proverbs and sayings. |