Jamaica is one of the most famous countries in the world. Hands down.
We’ve had several athletes hold the titles of fastest men and women in the world. We brought you reggae and rap. Introduced you to jerked chicken and Red Stripe beer. Popularized dreadlocks. Became a haven for hippies from all around the world. And have some of the best beaches Mother Nature has to offer.
One of the things that stand out most in Jamaican culture is our accent, and by extension, our dialect. While not everyone has a stereotypical Jamaican accent (most Americans assume I’m from California), and we don’t all speak the dialect, those who do often land themselves in trouble with other Anglophones.
The trouble comes from the fact that many English words have a totally different meaning in Jamaican Patois (pronounced patwa). While all Jamaicans learn and speak Standard English in school, many have a hard time shaking the colloquial meanings we use in our creole.
This can create problems when writing essays, even up to the college level; and when communicating with non-Jamaicans at home and abroad. It also often causes a problem when foreigners pitch semantic wars with us; never understanding that just because it looks like English, and may even sound like English, doesn’t mean it is.
To better illustrate this, here are 14 everyday “English” words that don’t mean what you think they mean — unless of course, you’re Jamaican, too. To make this easier to follow, all Jamaican Patois uses of English words are italicized.
1. Ignorant
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, ignorant means “lacking knowledge, information, or awareness about a particular thing”. Oxford also notes that it can be used informally to describe someone who is rude or impolite.
If you followed the link, you will notice there is a third definition referred to as “West Indian”. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, “West Indian” is the collective demonym for people who are of Caribbean ancestry.
Oxford states — and they are correct — that West Indians use the word ignorant to describe someone who is quick-tempered. In fact, in Jamaican Creole, we never use the word ignorant to mean someone is uniformed or lacking information.
2. Swarthy
The Oxford Dictionary explains that a swarthy person is someone who is dark-skinned. But if you told that to a Jamaican, you might be met with a blank stare and a cocked eyebrow.
Though the word has mostly fallen out of use with other Anglophones, it’s still commonly heard in Jamaica, especially in rural areas. I asked a few Jamaican friends to explain what comes to mind when they hear the word swarthy.
- “Big and fat”
- “Super fat and sloppy looking”
- “Morbidly obese”
As a fun fact, we pronounce it as “swaa-ti”, and it’s usually said as an insult. This isn’t a casual description you toss in a friend’s direction.
3. Hush
For most other Anglophones, to hush someone is to “make someone be quiet or stop talking”. When said as a command, it usually means “Be quiet” or in some extremes “Shut Up!” So naturally, hush is a very offensive response to almost anything, especially between two adults.
Or is it?
When I was collecting word-contributions from my friends, Shauna-Kay Hamilton shared a story most Jamaicans can relate to at some point in their lives: that awkward moment we tell a non-Jamaican, Hush!
“I used hush at work… And trust me I had to backpedal. My boss thought I was being rude,” she shared with me via a Facebook post. “It was bad… It was his wife that had cancer come back.”
The reason few Jamaicans would think twice about saying hush to a man lamenting his wife’s new onset of cancer is that in Jamaica hush is meant to console. It doesn’t mean that the person should be quiet.
It’s the informal equivalent of saying, “I’m so sorry” or “my condolences”. When said between two close friends or family members, it may be said as hush yaaw. The yaaw doesn’t really mean anything. In Jamaican Patois, it’s just a sound or word we use to emphasize a point.
If we actually do want you to shut up, we might say Hush up! or Hush nuh!
4. Out of Order
We all know that bathrooms, buses, and even billboard signs can be out of order. But did you know that children can be out of order, too?Americans are probably the most likely to be perplexed by this one, because in American English “out of order” typically means that something is out of working order, or not arranged in the correct sequence.
The British, however, come a step closer to how “out of order” is used in Jamaican Creole. In colloquial British English, it means, “(of a person or their behaviour) unacceptable or wrong”.
While the contexts are similar, in Jamaican Patois it’s typically used to mean someone is excessively rude, impolite, and generally does not follow instructions.
However, this almost exclusively applies to children. It’s a lot less common to hear adults refer to each other as out of order, unless of course, we’re being patronising.
5. Bright
The adult equivalent of out of order would be bright. For regular English speakers, the word bright refers to intelligence, or an abundance of light. For Jamaicans, someone who is bright is rude, disrespectful, and likely needs a proper thrashing to set them straight.
In fact, often when referring to children, adults put the two terms together as bright and out of order.
6. Hard of Hearing
While we’re still on the topic of bad children, let’s toss in another favourite description in Jamaica: hard of hearing. The Oxford English dictionary describes hard of hearing as literally, “not able to hear well”.
But if a Jamaican describes their child as hard of hearing, what they really mean is that the child is extremely disobedient.
7. Bun
Moving on to something a bit more comical, let’s talk about bun. Bun has many meanings and comes in many forms around the world. But in almost any country, including Jamaica, bun is a type of pastry.
In Jamaican Patois, bun also has a second meaning. A common saying in Jamaica is that two things are sure in life: death and bun. That means that we will all die, and we will all be cheated on at some point. Yes, you read that correctly.
Bun is used as a noun. To give bun is to cheat, and to get bun is to be cheated on. Since eating our pastry-bun with cheese is an Easter tradition, this leads to several Easter-related jokes that are as inappropriate as they are hilarious. Bakery shops are also frequently used in puns regarding bun.
I have no idea how the word bun came to have that meaning. My guess is that the original word may have actually been “burn”, to describe the emotional pain, as Jamaicans often pronounce burn as bun. Basically, we butchered the British accent.
8. Whine & Wine
Continuining on a lighter note, let’s next discuss the word whine or wine. Both spellings are used in Jamaican Patois. Now, I’m pretty sure I don’t need to tell you that wine is made from fermented grapes, or that a whine is a “a long, high-pitched complaining cry”.
But I most certainly need to explain that in Jamaican Patois, whining refers to the way a woman moves her derriere while dancing. This tends to refer to a slow and more seductive movement, but can cover all tempos and styles.
If you’re wondering why I didn’t use a Jamaican for the video above, it’s a lot sexier when we do it… and that might not be appropriate for all viewers. She does a pretty good demonstration though! If you’re not interested in the tutorial, then skip to 2:05 – 2:26.
9. Salad
Since we’ve already mentioned wine, we might as well keep the food coming. Right? But while salad means the same as it does in any other part of the world, it has a second meaning in Jamaica.
As one of my Jamaican guy friends artfully explained, “Salad is when you kick the ball through another player’s legs in football.” And of course, by football, we mean actual football ie soccer.
10. Salt
Is there room for one more food reference? Yes? Then let’s discuss salt. Yes, salt. We all know what salt means and what it’s used for. It flavours the ocean and our food.
In America, it even flavours feelings. According to the Urban Dictionary, salty is “a word originating in Philadelphia generally meaning that you just got played, or are looking stupid, either because of something you did, or something that was done to you.”
Typically speaking, Jamaicans use salt as both a noun and the corresponding adjective. In other words, we don’t say “salty”. Too many syllables! The meaning is a lot different, as well, though the Americans aren’t too far off.
If a Jamaican describes you as salt then we mean you’re really unlucky. This may mean that bad things tend to happen to you, but it can also mean association with you causes bad things to happen to other people.
11. Par
When Sean Paul released “Get Busy” in the early 2000s, it was gold. An instant hit, Americans loved it even though they had no idea what he was saying.
The famous line goes, “Yo sexy ladies wa par with us/ Inna the car with us/ Them nah war with us.” I always thought by context, foreigners had picked up on what par meant, but now I realise that’s likely not the case.
Par has many meanings in English. It’s most common use is as part of the phrase “on par with”; meaning that something is equivalent or equal to something else, or on the same level. It is also frequently used as “up to par”; meaning that a person or thing meets the necessary requirements.
But in Jamaica, to par with someone is to spend time with them. More often than not, this refers to friends, rather than people in relationships, or to family members. Ready for another fun fact? Another word for friend in Jamaican Patois is parri. No surprise there, right?
12. Links
For a long time, outside of tech, link up was a phrase I only heard in Jamaican circles. It means what every other millennial around the world now uses it to mean ie to meet up and spend time together, or par. Gradually, it worked its way into British rap, and now it seems that the Americans have caught on.
What still remains a fairly Jamaican Patois saying though, is links. Just as you par with your parri, in Jamaica, you linkup with your links (sometimes called linkies). Links can also refer to beneficial connections in the professional world, and in the entertainment industry.
13. Rate
I might be boring a hole in the topic of friendship at this point, but rate is another friendly world in the Jamaican vernacular. According to the Oxford English dictionary, rate has a number of meanings.
In Standard English, rating can be used as a form of measurement, or to benchmark one thing against another. A rate can also refer to the speed at which something moves, or even how much you might pay a moving truck to move it for you.
In Jamaican Patois, rate means none of these things. If a Jamaican says they rate you, it means they respect and admire you. In other words, they rate you highly. If a man says it to woman, it can also be a closeted admission of “I like you”.
14. Box
Aggressive, but often hilarious, box is one of those ageless Jamaican Patois slangs that have been passed down for generations. Most English-speakers will picture a square or rectangular box, or some container made of cardboard or even wood. You might even stretch your imagination to consider boxing something ie putting something in a box.
Jamaicans stretch their imaginations much farther with this one. To box someone in Jamaica means to slap them across the face. Culturally, Jamaican men and women alike will stand their ground, so this is one of those threats you might not want to make when visiting the island. Someone might box you over…
— I started working on this article by posting the following question on my personal Facebook page:JAMAICANS ONLY: What are some “English” words we use in patois that don’t mean the same thing in actual English? Eg. We use “hush” as a way to console someone, but “hush” actually means “shut up” in English.
I had a list of more than 20 in just an hour. That said, there are many other examples worth sharing.
If you know a few from Jamaica or any other country with an English-based dialect, feel free to share them with me in the comments. Stories of miscommunication across any and all cultural lines are also welcome.
If you’re fascinated by Jamaica and would love to learn more, then I also recommend:
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16 MORE English Words & Phrases that Mean Something Totally Different in Jamaican Patois
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10 Things you Probably Didn’t Know about Jamaica
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The 6 Main Ethnic Groups that Created Jamaican Culture
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5 Ways Jamaican Culture is Secretly Feminist
***Featured Image provided by Jamaican photographer, Darien Robertson. You can find him on Twitter as @Darius_Roberti.
Thank you for visiting and following my blog Alexis. Yours is very educational and interesting.
Thank you, Anne! I’m glad you’ve found it informative! I try to share as much of my culture as I can with those around me, and pick up on everyone else’s along the way.
I look forward to seeing you in my feed! ^_^
You used one without even realizing, in you reply to someone…”blouse and skirt” meaning oh wow
Haha, I realised. The commenter mentioned something related, and it reminded me of the song.
Thanks for sharing!
Oh, just thought of another one – favour- “ bwoy him favour you. Meaning you look alike.
Sent from Di
>
Hey, thanks! Someone mentioned that one when I asked the question on Facebook, but if you look up the definition, using “favour” to mean resemble is proper English.
That’s on paper though. In real life, I’ve only heard a few non-Jamaicans use it that way, and they were African-American. I think we still use words the old way in patois. Same with “patronising” to mean supporting a business with purchases. We’re the only ones I know who still use the word that way. 🙂
Weird, huh!
I found this article to be quite fun, interesting and accurate.
It’d be really great if you did a part two! I thought of a few more words/phrases you might consider.
Raw – very hungry
Scratch – when used to mean itch (as in ‘mi han a scratch mi’)
Foot – that part of the body that begins at the intersection with the hip and ends with the ‘foot bottom’. What my family refers to as the ‘Jamaican foot’, not to be confused with the ‘biological foot’ on which one’s shoe is worn 😉
NB. Likewise, the ‘Jamaican hand’ starts at the shoulder and ends at the fingertips. Also, the stomach for some J’cans is located at the chest region. Non-Jamaicam doctors need to know about these unique body parts.
Duck – the action taken to avoid getting hit by something 🙂
Buck – isn’t a male deer, but something painful that can happen to one’s toe. Our foreign friends stub theirs 🙂
I’ve got more, but this comment is getting too long. I can’t wait for part two of your article though! Tek care!
Thanks Trudy-Ann! These are great additions. I’ll definitely start planning a part 2. This one took months to put together, but part 2 would be easier with all the contributions you guys have made in the comments.
I have to admit the itch and scratch followed me right into adulthood. I always had to think twice before using the word, depending on who I’m talking to. Now that I’m in America, and it’s mostly English speakers, I find I just choose the right one automatically. Hopefully 😂
Stay tuned for part 2!
Hi
I’d just like to add another meaning of “salt” how I know it through my Jamaican parents. The term salt can also mean rubbish, dead, whack, dry E.g the party I went to the other night was salt. I think it’s used to exaggerate that the party or whatever it may be was extremely dry therefore it was salt.
Hi ALF! I’ve never heard it used that way, but I think you’re the second or third person to add that meaning in the comments. Maybe it’s a generation thing! Just like some older folks didn’t know us youngins/millennials use “parri” now instead of just “pardi”, but they both mean “friend”.
Thanks for taking the time to read and comment. Really appreciate it 🙂
In Jamaica we may say, “I am going to carry my mother to the doctor”. A British person may wrongly assume she can not walk. It just means we are taking her to the doctor.
I also think in Jamaica we may confuse the word stomach with the chest. This can be confusing for English doctors trying to diagnose an ailment in these parts of the body in a Jamaican patient. Similarly the word foot and leg is often confused.
Both true, Ava! I think a lot of Jamaicans tend to make the carry mistake even when speaking English. We’re to used to saying it in patois, haha.
Thanks for sharing!
Children do not LEARN and SPEAK standard English in Jamaican schools! Some are taught it, and some learn it, but many never speak it. Many teachers cannot themselves speak standard English.
Nice article though I think you miss the chance to point out that, as with many words that are the same but have different meanings, tone and context matter. As with ‘hush’, which is hardly ever said with a harsh tone by Jamaicans.
Thank you for taking the time to read and comment! Unfortunately, I disagree with you entirely.
I’ve attended schools in 6 parishes across the island, and was never at any school for more than 2 years, prior to high school. I moved a lot. Even for college, I did one degree in Montego Bay, and the other in Kingston.
All my teachers spoke Standard English and taught in English. I even had a teacher who kept a jar for children who would not speak English. When you slipped and spoke patois, you had to put a coin in the jar.
That said, my experience does not validate or confirm your own. Maybe it’s a matter of where you went to school in Jamaica. I attended both public and private schools – east and west ends.
Tone and context matter and don’t matter. When we say hush to an American, they blow up in spite of our tone, which is not harsh, and in spite of the context. Different cultures view context and tone differently. They have different rules about what is or is not appropriate.
In America, political correctness focuses on the words more so than the context. For example, there is almost no appropriate context or tone in which a White American could say “nigger” and get away with it. He could be a comedian, a rapper, or a politician. The media would ruin him.
Being ‘taught’ in a language and having some teachers speak it (with or without rules for those who don’t) isn’t the same as ‘learning’ it. That applies universally, including in Britain, where similar phenomena of dominant ‘mother tongues’ (or dialects) not being displaced by teaching can be seen but in different contexts (eg Cockneys, Geordies in England, and Gaelic in other parts of Britain, eg Wales).
I also know children currently being schooled in Jamaica who are well versed in standard English, even though many of them are non-native English speakers, for whom ‘Patois’ has become their ‘standard’, not ‘standard English’. Therein lies another tale. 🙂
Americans are another case, as they speak a form of English that is already understood to be not the same as ‘standard English’ and many common words and phrases in Britain have different meaning (famously, ‘rubbers’, ‘fanny’, ‘pavement’ and many more).
How English is used in Jamaica or other colonies derives from many things, including our being ‘stuck’ in time with certain usages, which others have dropped.
On the specific use of the ‘N’ word, that is a term much used now by many to whom the term was applied, eg black people, who seem to have embraced it. How, they arrived there is an interesting study. Why their usage is deemed different than the usage by others (eg whites) is also an interesting study of many areas of psychology and linguistics, at least.
If a child is taught and doesn’t learn something, that’s on the child, in my opinion. Everyone I know learned Standard English in school. How much of it they absorbed and applied in real life, is up to them.
Same as I learned calculus in college, but I haven’t used it since, and would likely fail a calculus test if handed one today. That doesn’t negate the fact that I did learn it. I just didn’t retain it. Our brain forgets whatever it considers useless for everyday living and application.
I know many Europeans from Greece, Hungary etc who speak fluent English from learning it in school at the grade and college levels, as the international language of science, business, and commerce. Some are more fluent than others. The same applies to Anglophones, surrounded by dialects. Again, does not negate the fact that they were taught it. Whether they learn it or not, still up to the individual student.
How English is used in ANY country is different. The British, Australians, Canadians, Americans… and Jamaicans all use different English words to mean different things even in Standard English. An excellent example is petrol versus gas for the English and America; or even Jamaica, as we say gas. Or salloon, instead of sedan. Or tram, instead of train etc etc. It’s not specific to Jamaica alone.
If there are no need for more replies, then we’ll start with yours. It has been deleted.
Have a great weekend 😊
Good read. When my 10 yr old stepson came to Canada three years ago, he did a school project on ww1. He said the soldiers used the bayonet to “Juck” (stab/pook) the enemy. LOL! The teacher, knowing some Jamaican lingo, had to explain “juck” to the class. 😁
Hahahaha. Well I’m glad the teacher understood and was able to explain what he meant. And hopefully she didn’t mark him down for that.
I’m glad you enjoyed the article and thanks for sharing that story! 😊
This article was sent to me by a friend. I smiled the whole way through… reading it I remembered while studying in the U.S. I told a church sister I was “going to look for” my sister in Canada. Her response with a puzzled and slightly worried face, “is she lost?” LOL, I had to think quick and say, “oh no no, i’m going to visit her.”
Lmao Khadene. I really need to do a part two! No one mentioned “look for”. That’s a good one! 😂
Thanks so much for reading, and please tell your friend thank you for sharing my post.
I’m truly flattered by the support I’ve received on this from the Jamaican diaspora. You guys really made my week. 😊
Great article! I had fun reading it and loving my Jamaican language even more. Communicating with non-Jamaicans can get tricky. After reading this, I realized I was guilty of using ‘hush’ so I sent my friend the article and asked if she had understood what I meant. Sure enough she had not! Luckily, she hadn’t taken offence.
One great word to add to this list is jacket…giving a man a child that is not his!
Hi Natricha! Jacket is a good one. I’m thinking of doing a part 2 for this, with all the suggestions you guys have made. If I do, jacket will definitely make the list.
Also, I’m glad you caught the hush, and shared the article with your friend. I said it to an American once when I was a kid, and they blew up. Never did it again 😂
Hi Alexis,
Great article…funny. Some of the broke. English is not too far fetched.
Hush comes from Hush little baby, and yes people have mistaken it for me telling them to shut up.
It’s pardi as in partner, not parri
Bright, meaning facetious/undermining the adult. Usually used when the kid thinks he/she is smarter than the adult and can get away with …..
Box, comes from boxing, hand open or closed
Never heard of Linkies, but Links mean connections
Par- on par with, on same level, move in stride- e.g. to a party, etc.
Rate does mean they grade you as good enough or revered enough to be their friend or person to look up to
Salt….out of luck….in a salty/sour spot.
Thanks for commenting. However, the word is parri. Pardi tends to be the older generation. Both words mean the same thing. If you scroll a few comments down, you’ll see a few people commented on that below.
Boxing I’ve only ever heard as referring to the open hand. If we use a fist, that’s “tump”.
But the dialect does differ by generation and region. In the end, we understand each other 😊
Thanks again!