KINGSTON, Jamaica — Walk into any government office, courtroom or classroom in Jamaica, and you’ll be expected to speak the official language, English. But venture into the street, tune into a radio ...

The battle lines have softened somewhat, but there is still substantial opposition to patois in the pulpit. Critics say it will dilute Scripture and undermine the already weak hold many poor Jamaicans ...

KINGSTON, Jamaica -- When English teacher Faith Linton first proposed translating the Bible into Jamaica's patois tongue in the late 1950s, most people who heard the idea shook their heads. Some on ...

Most words in Jamaican patois, like other English Caribbean patois, are English words filtered through a distinct phonetic system with fewer vowels and different consonant sounds. Patois is written ...

I write in response to Professor Carolyn Cooper’s article entitled ‘Emancipating the Jamaican language lickle-lickle’ published in The Gleaner on August 7. As usual, her argument is on point. In ...

Analisa Novak is a content producer for CBS News and the Emmy Award-winning "CBS Mornings." She specializes in covering live events and exclusive interviews for the show. Analisa is a United States ...

When Saffron Jackson went to buy her daughter a doll, she was frustrated at the dearth of options for black girls. So Jackson, a 38-year-old Jamaican teacher who resides in the United Kingdom, decided ...

Diversity matters, even when it comes in the form of a doll. With research that shows dolls with unrealistically thin bodies have had negative effects on young girls’ self-esteem, a movement has ...

We may not think of Jamaica as a bilingual society, but local bloggers are assuring us that it is. English and Patois—or Patwa, as it's often written—are widely spoken, but the Jamaican mother ...

Jamaicans have proverbs, expressions, and commentary on just about everything. Marital woes? Workplace drama? The frenzied pace of life? You name it–they’ve probably got an opinion. Some of these ...