Lesson 9 of 48 · St. Thomas
Ask everything with flat word order and rising melody; command the tags noh, nuh true, seen — and the mighty No mus?
You never invert in Patois, and you never call for 'do' — the QUESTION IS IN THE MELODY. Take any statement and let the voice rise at the end: Yu a come? (are you coming?). Yu hungry? Yu nuh done yet? (aren't you done yet?). Practise pairs aloud: statement falling, question rising — same words, different tune. WH-QUESTIONS keep flat order too: Weh di bus stop deh? (where's the bus stop?). When yu a go? Omuch fi di fish? (how much for the fish?). Two beauties you must own: wa mek — literally 'what makes' — is WHY (Wa mek yu neva come a church?), and which paat asks where (Which paat Miss Brown live?). The cleft A sharpens who/what questions: A who tell yu dat? (WHO told you that?). A wa dat? TAGS carry half the meaning of Jamaican conversation. Add noh? to invite agreement or soften a request (Gi mi likkle wata, noh?). Nuh true? seeks confirmation (Di mango dem sweet, nuh true?). Seen? checks understanding (street register). Yaa is the warm 'you hear' (Walk good, yaa). Ee? is a bright 'right?'. And the counter-question No mus? means OF COURSE — Yu a come a maakit? — No mus! Example sentences: 1) Yu hungry? — Are you hungry? 2) Yu nuh done yet? — Aren't you finished yet? 3) Weh di bus stop deh? — Where is the bus stop? 4) Wa mek yu neva come? — Why didn't you come? 5) Omuch fi di fish, ma? — How much for the fish, ma'am? 6) Which paat di statue deh? — Where is the statue? 7) A who tell yu dat? — Who told you that? 8) Di sun hot tideh, ee? — The sun is hot today, right? Errors to recast: inversion (Are yu...? Is it...? → flat order plus rise); do-insertion (Do yu know...? → Yu know...?); flat dead melody (sing the rise with them, hands drawing the curve); and answering No mus? literally instead of hearing 'of course'.
| Patois | Cassidy-JLU | English |
|---|---|---|
| wa mek | wa mek | why (lit. what makes) |
| omuch | omoch | how much, how many |
| which paat | wich paat | where, whereabouts |
| when | wen | when |
| hou | ou | how |
| a who | a uu | who (is it) |
| noh? | no? | tag: won't you? / okay? |
| nuh true? | no chuu? | tag: isn't that so? |
| seen? | siin? | tag: understood? got it? |
| yaa | yaa | tag: you hear (warm) |
| ee? | ii? | tag: eh? right? |
| no mus | no mos | of course! |
He says explicitly that of the several Standard ways of asking a question the folk speech has only the raised final pitch; word order stays declarative even after an interrogative word, and he cites an 1837 example of exactly that failure to invert.
The description of the grammar is checked against the published work above. The lesson, the examples and the wording are mine.
Practise this lesson in the app →