DI BLOG

The question this series seeks to explore (and maybe to answer) is, "Why does Jamaica keep doing this?" My theory is that it isn't luck and it isn't talent. It is a reflex. Something we are trained into, generation after generation, by circumstances so specific to this island that almost nowhere else on earth developed it in quite the same way. I call it the go-round gene. And before you get all excited over the use of the word gene, let me stop and qualify what I mean.

Patwa [Patois] isn't just something you speak. It is something you perform. That may be the single biggest difference between Jamaican Patwa and most other languages. Most standard languages are designed to survive on a page. Patwa comes fully alive in the space between two people.