St. Elizabeth

The breadbasket parish

Welcome a St. Elizabeth — St. Bess, di breadbasket a Jamaica (the island's top farming parish)! Ya-so di faama dem coax food outta dry grung, an Black River tung hold nuff-nuff history. Wi a go master 'don' an di deh weh mean 'there is', cook wi way tru escovitch an rundung, an learn fi chat bout family an home life wid respect.

Lessons in this parish

32. Don an existential deh — mi don nyam; no money no deh — Mark completed actions with don/done — post-verbal done first — and say 'there is / there isn't' with existential deh and with a/is.
33. Passive sense — di house sell, di food buy — Say what was done to something without any passive verb — name the thing, use the bare verb, let context carry the rest.
34. Cooking immersion II — escovitch an rundung — Consolidate di kitchen verb chain dem — an master di mek-causative: mek i bwile, mek i cool dung, mek i cris.
35. Family an home life — fram yaad to nine-night — Deep family vocabulary plus di respectful language of mourning — nine-night, set-up, an how fi speak to di bereaved.

Culture from St. Elizabeth

St. Bess — di parish weh feed Jamaica — Work and economy
Black River — di tung a firsts — History
Appleton Estate — rum inna di valley — Food

Every Patois word taught in St. Elizabeth →

Proverbs taught in St. Elizabeth

Jamaican proverbs travel; most of these are said all over the island. The parish is where the course teaches it, not a claim about where it started.

Wata more dan flour.Too much water and not enough flour, so the dumplings cannot be made — times are hard and what you have is stretched too thin.

Yu neva miss di wata til di well run dry.You don't value what you have until it's gone.

Belly full, potato hab kin.The satisfied become choosy and ungrateful — full people find fault with food.

Start St. Elizabeth in the app →