😮 Di wide-open A — an weh LENGTH change di meaning
Part of the pronunciation section of Patwa Partner — how to physically make the sounds of Jamaican Patois.
Patois lean pon one wide-open A weh cover a whole heap a separate English vowel. Bad, bath, half, path, cat — all a dem run pon di same A. An di LENGTH carry meaning all by itself: bad a bad, baad a serious.
🔤 Di symbol dem, explained
/a/ — Di short open A.
/aa/ — Di same vowel, held roughly twice as long. Cassidy-JLU write it wid two letters, which literally mean "hold it".
👅 Mek di sound
Drop yuh jaw like di doctor a look pon yuh throat. Tongue low an flat inna di bottom a yuh mouth.
Lips NEUTRAL — nuh spread dem inna a smile, nuh round dem. Just relax.
Push voice through. Dat a di short a: bad, cat, han, ban.
Fi di long aa: exact same mouth, exact same shape — just HOLD it. Bout twice di time.
Change NUTTEN else while yuh hold it. No jump inna pitch, no extra vowel creeping in at di end. Just time.
🎞 Watch di mouthDi side view show yuh di tongue — di one ting yuh cyaan check inna a mirror. Di front view a di one yuh can. Tap any word inna di ladder below fi move di mouth pon dat word.
✋🏾 Feel check — do it nowSeh bad an count "one" inna yuh head pon di vowel. Seh baad an count "one, two". Nutten else different. If yuh mouth shape shift while yuh holding, yuh a add a second vowel by accident.
⚠️ Weh people slipBreaking di long one into two syllable — ba-ad. It a ONE long vowel, not two short ones back to back. Second slip: sorting di English vowel dem into different Patois vowel dem out a habit. Bath an cat tek di SAME A ya so.
🪜 Practice ladder
Step one — one word at a time. Tap ▶ fi hear it, den seh it back.
seh it
JLU
English
bad
bad
bad
baad
baad
seriously good / intense
han
han
hand
cyaan
kyaahn
can't (long aa)
wata
waata
water
laas
laas
last
Step two — di phrase.
PhraseDi food baad! — The food is seriously good!
Step three — di full sentence. Dis a di one fi record.
SentenceA nuh bad it bad — it baad, an dat a di good kind — It isn't bad-bad — it's "baad", and that's the good kind
🎙 Seh it backRecord yuhself pon di sentence, den play di two back to back. Yuh own ear a di judge — dat a how di mouth learn.
🎚 Mout Check — look pon weh yuh just didYuh hear yuhself back up top. Dis show yuh di same ting inna two picture yuh ear cyaan draw: weh yuh tongue deh, an how even yuh beat dem run.
Sources
Frederic G. Cassidy, Jamaica Talk: Three Hundred Years of the English Language in Jamaica (1961), pp. 33–34 [fieldwork 1952–59]
The structural reason this page exists: the low-mid back vowel of Standard English is missing, so bird and word fall in with bud and wud, lawn and corn with laan and kaan, and haughty/hearty, lawn/learn, pot/pat become homophone pairs.
Frederic G. Cassidy, Jamaica Talk: Three Hundred Years of the English Language in Jamaica (1961), p. 44 [fieldwork 1952–59]
Two a's, not one — a mid one in bat made further back than the Standard vowel, and a back one in Bart, written /a/ and /aa/. Individual words swap between them.
Frederic G. Cassidy, Jamaica Talk: Three Hundred Years of the English Language in Jamaica (1961), p. 43 [fieldwork 1952–59]
Neighbouring swaps this page can point at: the bet vowel for the bat vowel (/heng/ hang, /tenk/ thank) and the bit vowel for the bet vowel (/chis/ chest, /trimbl/ tremble).
The described rules come from the published work above. The teaching, the wording and the animation are mine.