Driving Patwa

THE EDITOR, Sir:

I wanted to congratulate The Gleaner for being bold enough to publish Prof Carolyn Cooper's commentary (Sunday Gleaner, 'Right-of-way? A wa dat?', May 18, 2014) in Jamaican English/Patois/Patwa. I am sure it would elicit a whole new round of long arguments about the rightful use of English and so on. While Patois is fairly difficult to read, it gets better with practice.

I note that Professor Cooper provides both the standard patois and the 'broken patois'. I have always found the chaka-chaka to seem more natural, and the few non-linguists who try to write things in Patois tend to use that. Maybe it's a factor of location and origin, since St Mary Patois and St Andrew Patois vary from the Westmoreland and St Bess versions. At this rate, we may have to start teaching proper Patois, alongside standard English. With my bit of French, I can start to feel multilingual.

Road code

Mek mi tek on di substance a di column now. Dr Coopa, yuh right so till. Mi nuh know a which part some a dem driva ya get dem licence. Is like a free-fi-all kinda ting, and tru every man need fi eat a food, we jus a let any and anyting gwaan a road.

Di idea fi mek di road code teach inna audio is a good one. Mek we mek sure seh people at least know weh dem fi know. Di only ting now is dat di test down a depot haffi go adjust, too? Mi nuh sure bout dat.

We shudda uphold di law. Dem fi read and write, but we fi back up dat with publicising di rules tru di media inna Patwa. See di first line fi help out di police bredren ya:

"Wen yuh come up pon a roundabout, yuh fi gi way to di vehicle we deh inna di roundabout already. Dat a di one weh deh on yuh right."

So we have a Patwa Bible, soon di Patwa road code; Gleana, a Patwa STAR a come bout ya soon?

KURT DAVIS

kurtodavis@gmail.com