Lesson 4 of 48 · Kingston
Locate people and things with the locative verb deh: Weh X deh? X deh a yaad.
To say WHERE something is, Patois uses its own verb of place: deh (from the Twi language). The question: Weh yu deh? — where are you? The answer: Mi deh a yaad — I'm at home. Pattern: [thing] deh a [place]. No 'is', ever. Kingston place words: yaad (home), tung (downtown — going dung a tung), maakit (market — Coronation Market a di biggest one!), shap (shop), road (out on the street). Point precisely with ya-so (right here) and deh-so (right there). One elegant rule: when another place word like dung or ova already sits in the sentence, the verbal deh can drop — Im dung deh (he's down there), Dem ova deh-so (they're right over there). And deh makes existence itself: No bread no deh a di shap — there IS no bread at the shop. Example sentences: 1) Weh yu deh? — Mi deh a yaad. — Where are you? — I'm at home. 2) Weh di pickney-dem deh? — Dem deh a school. — Where are the children? — They're at school. 3) Weh Miss P shap deh? — I deh dung a road. — Where is Miss P's shop? — It's down the road. 4) Di maakit deh dung a tung. — The market is downtown. 5) Im ova deh-so. — He's right over there. 6) Grani deh a church. — Grandma is at church. 7) No wata no deh inna di pipe. — There's no water in the pipe. 8) Gordon House deh pon Duke Street. — Gordon House is on Duke Street. Errors to recast: inserting 'is' (Weh yu is? → Weh yu deh?); using deh before adjectives (Mi deh sick → Mi sick — adjectives need NO verb at all, coming in St. Andrew); saying 'at home' (→ a yaad); and doubling wrongly (Im deh dung deh → Im dung deh). Drill the two deh's apart: in Dem deh deh, the first deh is the verb, the second means 'there'.
| Patois | Cassidy-JLU | English |
|---|---|---|
| deh | de | to be (in a place) |
| weh | we | where |
| yaad | yaad | home, yard |
| tung | tong | town, downtown |
| maakit | maakit | market |
| shap | shap | shop |
| grung | grong | ground; farm plot |
| a door | a duor | outdoors, outside |
| ya-so | ya-so | right here |
| deh-so | de-so | right there |
| dung deh | dong de | down there |
| ova deh | uova de | over there |
| a farin | a farin | abroad, overseas |
| road | ruod | street; out on the road |
He treats de/deh as a genuine verb of place meaning 'be', of African origin, and cites overheard Kingston speech of exactly the lesson's shape ('wherever you are, we call you'; 'wherever he is, a snake is not far off'). No form of 'is' appears.
The description of the grammar is checked against the published work above. The lesson, the examples and the wording are mine.
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