Writing with Jamaican dialauge. To do or not to do?

Simply, 2.

Phonetic spelling of accents is--at best--tiring for the reader. At worst, it comes across as denigrating the people speaking.

Generally, it's better to convey accent through the rhythm of speech, word order, and vocabulary choice.

Agreed. Try and keep phonetics to an absolute minimum. Even what you have above is annoying and is only creating a rod for your own back - especially the reference to 'wata'.

Once the reader knows the character is Jamaican they will do the interpreting themselves if you focus on word choice and sentence structure to convey rhythm. Just a sample -

"The general. Him look after food and water. His house am long time along the shore. That way."

Or whatever.

Check whether those grammatical usages are part of Jamaican dialect first! I'm not convinced they are. They sound wrong.

A little quick Googling tells me there's a separate language, Jamaican Patois (locally known as Patwa) and Jamaican English, which runs the gamut from being basically Patwa to highly-educated British English.

I'd suggest using a page like this one to add local vocabulary, then find out what grammatical quirks local speakers are prone to. Read some poetry, or find a few blogs of people based in Jamaica, and get a feel for how the local version of English is structured.

Don't assume, basically.

I wrote a short story recently with an Antiguan character, and got help from a couple Antiguan expats with the language. I was pleased with the way it came out...

I didn't learn enough to be able to tell you how that line would come out, I'm afraid. However, I'm pretty sure that the verb "to be" is omitted much of the time.

There are dialect glossaries on the Internet but they are usually alphabetized by dialect word. For instance http://www.thedialectdictionary.com/view/letter/Jamaican/

You will find some purely phonetic changes in these glossaries, based on how locals actually spell these words. However, even so, I would probably use a Standard English spelling if it does not indicate a clear change in pronunciation beyond systematic changes. . The reference above gives "arinj" for "orange", but I would stick with "orange." However, "batty," meaning "bottom" or "ass," indicates changes beyond the overall o->a vowel shift, and probably ought to be used.

"Dwelling" doesn't sound right for most people's spoken English.

So you'd be looking (DO NOT USE THIS, THIS IS PROBABLY NOT CORRECT, IT IS ONLY TO ILLUSTRATE A POINT) at something like

"The general, (he/him?) in charge of the food and water. (He/him?) live south of here near the shore."

The idea is that your speaker will think "the" and say "de" in the same way I see "eight" and say "ate". So you write it But when he says "he" in the first sentence, or when I say "he's", we do not mean "he is" . Use nonstandard spellings only when they illustrate what your speaker would think of the word.

But don't sit around here listening to me, find somebody who knows what they are talking about!

I say #2. Do you have anyone who is Jamaican that you can speak to? My family is from Jamaica and speaks Patois. If you've ever heard it, it can be difficult to tell what they're saying because of the colloquialisms and the dialect itself. I would have someone consult you with that if you want to make it authentic. Otherwise it will come off as corny. I was born in America and I can't speak a lick of Patois. It's hard to learn because it's conversational; you can tell when someone is faking it versus the real thing.

sample dialogue of a Jamaican taxi-driver in Kingston, from a novel I recently read. (book is slightly dated: pub'd in 1955)

"If dere is anything I can do --"
"Dey find he in de alley outside de house."
"It not fair to make de joke wit me."

Hmm. Maybe this is a good example of what not to do ;-)

Damon Nicholl said:

https://jamaicanize.com/

This is the site I'v been using which is supposed to be Jamaican Patois. I guess I would need to know how they would convey a sentence instead of spelling out the sounds they make.

Click to expand...

Yeeaaah. Better to get yourself a Jamaican and speak to them yourself.

Word choice, yes. Pseudophonetic spelling, no (with perhaps very minor exception).

First, understand that the English language, as written, is anything but "phonetic" in spelling. Even the word "phonetic" isn't fonetikly spelled.

Now, go say these words aloud:

yacht
knot
thought
though
through
tough
cough
loose
juice
truce
shoe
flu
you
yew
ewe
out
doubt
. . .

caw

It all depends upon what kind of character you want.

I spent several years in Jamaica and, as evilrooster mentions, the spoken English ranges across a very wide sphere. If you've never been to Jamaica or don't know anyone who speaks 'Jamaican' you will have a hard time being authentic and guessing or using phonetics is not going to work.

Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados - they're all different to the ear.

Folk who may speak patois when addressing other patois speakers can also speak very good English.

Everything depends upon the character you have in the story. Depending upon who he is or to whom he is answering or when or where the scene takes place your Jamaican may be reluctant to say anything at all. Really impossible to answer in respect of an isolated sentence out of context.

Bufty said:

Folk who may speak patois when addressing other patois speakers can also speak very good English.

Click to expand...

My Mom is like that - she speaks very good English but once you hear her start talking to my Uncle or anyone else who is Jamaican all of that goes out the window. My sister spent most of her childhood in Jamaica. She speaks to me in plain English but speaks to my mom in Patois.

My Uncle is or was a rastafarian. As a kid it was heavy, some of what he said I didn't understand. His personal opinion at the time is that you can't learn or replicate Patois. You either know it or you don't. When I was young I tried to speak it and he shut me down right away. It just sounds stupid or funny to someone whose grown up in that environment and uses it on an everyday basis. It's so hard for me to even type out words or phrases I know because it just does not translate.