A Day in the Life of a Jamaican Patwa Linguist

Here at The Language Shop, our Jamaican Patois (or Patwa) department has been busy. We were asked to deliver certified bi-lingual Jamaican Patwa and English transcripts corresponding to various audio recordings for a court case. Once the certified transcripts were delivered, I would be required to testify in court, in order for the documents to be admitted into evidence.

After downloading the audio files and ascertaining the respective durations, we evaluated the quality of the recordings. The speech in all the files was barely intelligible because the speaker had been far away from the person doing the recording. We had to use special software to exceed the maximum audio settings on the average personal computer to render the speech intelligible. However, the loud banging and scraping throughout the recordings made it difficult to hear the speech and we had to use special software to try to reduce the background noise.

This job was by no means for the faint of heart. Because of the faintness of the speech, the audio had to be listened to repeatedly at the highest possible pitch, resulting in near deafness due to the background noise. The recordings were also hard to listen to because they were fraught with hostile language, profanities and threats.

Once the transcripts had been prepared in Patwa and translated into English, a corresponding certificate of accuracy had to be notarized and attached to each transcript. A date was set for my virtual court appearance. After I had been sworn in, I had to state my qualifications as a linguist and my background in transcribing and translating Jamaican Patwa, in addition to attesting to the accuracy of the transcripts. I stood my ground as the opposing attorney tried to find ways to undermine the contents of the transcripts.

I cleared up the misconception that English is Jamaican Patwa’s main or sole language of origin. In reality, Jamaican Patwa is a combination of various European languages including Spanish, Portuguese, French and English, in addition to the African dialect, Twi. I explained that when a word is used in Patwa, it can have a different connotation from an identically written word in English.

The judge stated she could follow the transcript in Patwa. When she later requested that I indicate in Patwa where a sentence had been translated into English, I convinced her that she was indeed unable to follow in Patwa. After this, all of our transcripts were admitted into evidence.

The Language Shop is your trusted name in providing multi-lingual Jamaican Patwa transcripts from audio recordings.

Further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamaican_Patois#:~:text=Jamaican%20Patois%20contains%20many%20loanwords,as%20Scottish%20and%20Irish%20dialects