Weird Bibles 5: Jamaican Patois Bible
Well, you’ve probably seen the news articles today – the Bible Society is now selling the New Testament (“Nyuu Testiment”) in Jamaican Patois (“Jamiekan Patwa”). Pretty impressive for a dialect which has no standardized written language! “Kaa, yu si, Gad lov di worl so moch dat im gi op im wan dege-dege Bwai Pikni so enibadi we chose iina im naa go ded bot a-go liv fi eva.”
You can listen to “Di Gud Nyuuzbout Jiizas azkaadn tu Luuk” here, you can listen “1 Korintiyan13” here and listen/read many more samples here.
Here are some samples highlighted by the Bible Society:
1. Matthew 1: 23 The prophecy of Jesus birth: ‘Lisn op! Di uman we neehn slip wid no man a-go get beibi…’ rather than, ‘Behold a virgin shall be with child’.
2. Matthew 2: 11 The wise men give Jesus their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, reads, ‘Dem tek out di present we dem did bring, an gi di pikni – guol, frangkinsens an mor.’
3. Mark 1:16 Jesus calls his first disciples saying, ‘Fala mi’, rather than ‘follow me’.
4. Mark 4: 39 Jesus calms the storm. In English it reads, ‘Jesus stood up and commanded the wind, “Be quiet!” and he said to the waves, “Be still!”. In Patois this now reads, ‘ So Jiizas get op an taak chrang tu di briiz, an tel di sii fi sekl dong.’
5 Luke 1: 28 The Angel Gabriel tells Mary that she will give birth to Jesus. Read in church services every Christmas as, ‘Hail though that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.’ This now reads, ‘Mieri, mi av nyuuz we a-go mek yu wel api. Gad riili riili bles yu an im a waak wid yu all di taim.’
6. Luke 2: 7 Mary wraps Jesus in ‘swaddling clothes’ when he is born. In Patois this is now, ‘Shi rap im op iina biebi blangkit ‘.
7. Luke 6: 27 ‘Love your enemies’ becomes ‘lov unu enimi’
8. John 2:3 Mary tells Jesus that the wine has run out at the wedding in Cana, before he turns water into wine in his first miracle. In English this reads, ‘They have no more wine’. In Patois it now reads, ‘Dem na’av no muor wain lef’.
Now, it might rightly be argued that this is not weird Bible at all – that this is merely a translation into a spoken dialect (that, among other things, helps take a snapshot of that dialect). While that is arguably the case (and this is certainly a project pursued with earnestness) it is not an unnatural reaction for speakers of American or British (or Canadian, New Zealand, or Australian) smile. The translators defend their choice thusly:
Q: Won’t translating the Bible into Jamaican cause more laughter than seriousness?
A: "Sun a shine but tings no bright;
Doah pot a bwile, bickle no nuff;
River flood but water scarce, yawl
Rain a fall but dutty tough." –Ms Lou (Dutty Tough)No one who reads the except above would find it funny; Jamaican can be used to convey hardship, tragedy, love and a wealth of other emotions without being humerous. BSWI and its partners are very serious about what they are doing. They believe the Bible is a respectable book and that persons who read or hear it must be able to identify it as a book that is to be taken seriously. The Bible will be translated with this in mind. Also, the translation will be tested in locations on the island before it is published.
Previous posts:
Weird Bibles 4: Digital Handwritten Bible
Weird Bibles 3: Playful Puppies Bible
Weird Bibles 2: Etymological New Testament
Weird Bibles 1: Archaic Aramaic script
An Orthodox translation
See also here.
BLT 
I just listened to the Luke 2 passage — I like it! It doesn’t sound funny or weird to me, it sounds real and down to earth. Given the kind of people that Jesus hung out with and preached to, I think there’s a lot of merit in translations that are in dialect rather than educated diction.
What is weird is the missionary motivations by outsiders; here’s from the mission statement of the project –
“By translating the Bible into the heart language of the Jamaican people, we aim to aid in effecting positive change in the spiritual, ethical, psychological and social life of Jamaicans.”
Notice, the “we” here are not “the Jamaican people.” True, there are several recruited “Jamaican people” on the project. Nonetheless, the central person, the sole and primary exegete of the Bible is not Jamaican. Rather, he is David W. Kuck, an Evangelical Lutheran Church in America missionary (with his wife Mary Kuck), the former pastor of the First Lutheran Church in West Haven, Connecticut, now with the Global Mission Unit, who’s written the book, Preaching in the Caribbean: Building Up a People for Mission.
Their published goals for this project are:
“To produce an accurate and acceptable translation of the Holy Scriptures (of the New Testament first and then of the Old Testament) into Jamaican Creole (Patwa). The final product will be suitable for use in areas such as evangelism, discipleship, individual/group recreational listening, youth ministry and broadcasting.”
It would seem that these missionary, evangelism goals are different from the goals of many Jamaicans who use their language for other purposes. The purposes of many would be to gain liberation from colonial influences and to gain national and cultural identity for “Jamaicans at home and in the Diaspora.”
This USA-missionary led evangelistic Bible translation project appears to give no recognition of Jamaican literature. The goal for “accuracy” would come before love of the language, of its poetry, of the nationalism it calls for in general. It is doubtful, for example, that David and Mary Kuck have consulted with the Jamaican writer of Jabari – Authentic Jamaican Dictionary of the Jamic Language: Featuring Jamaican Patwa and Rasta Iyaric, Pronunciations and Definitions. This individual, author Ras Dennis Jabari Reynolds, writes:
What would be far less weird is if a Thomas MacDermot, a Claude McKay, an Una Marson, a Louise Bennett-Coverly, a Derek Walcott, a Mikey Smith, and a Bob Marley had rendered the Bible in their own language for non-Euro/American missionary purposes.
Victoria, I understand your point of view. But there was something about that recitation that made it seem odd — the cheesy synthesizer music playing in the background. Jamaica has an unusually rich musical heritage — why not draw on that if the attempt to to make a work of lasting value?
Kurk, your comments remind me of a poem by Louise Bennett (Miss Lou):
JAH MI FADA
Jamaican Patwa is not a dialect. It is a language. Linguists have been well aware of this since the middle of the 20th century.
fimichat –
Thanks for your comment.
Linguists using English often use the borrowed French word patois, which also means “dialect,” to describe the language of Jamaica. The Oxford English Dictionary includes this note of origin:
And the following definitions:
and
And then jamaicanpatwah.com, “Jamaican Patwah’s web site” (ostensibly “governed by the laws of the State of St James, Jamaica“), has the following:
I applaud this as a move of The Holy Spirit in this Church Age! Might I suggest that had the KJV et al been used as a parallel with the Patois/Patwa version of God’s Message of Salvation and attendant life of the Christ-follower, “Jamaica Land We Love” would have found itself in a far different state of Spirit, than it has over these last many years. Who could have predicted the criminal or corrupt mind based on all things class, colour and economics? Who’s brave enough to call it that the hope and inspiration of The Word, of being of value and the message of Love perhaps excluded loads of our fellow Jamaicans; and to what end?
Educators, who happen to be Christians or Christians, who happen to be educators have known the issues run beyond class/socio-economics, yet would be hard-pressed to deny how they impact progress : the plain truth is that Jamaica has developed a parallel language, which we ALL understand, yet we do not ALL struggle with Received Pronunciation English, Grammar and so on. At the risk of tipping the scales of the staus quo: I submit that many do struggle with these fundamentals – should such of my compatriots miss the Scriptures by dint of birth, circumstance? Is that even a Christian concept? Was the Street Greek of parts of the New Testament more valuable than the motivation to spread God’s Word to “The Least of” God’s people? Shame on those, who decry this move (now a reality) even as the National Anthem is a humble, beautiful prayer! The second verse says it best!
Language evolves. Read The “Lord’s Prayer” in the language of Chaucer! T’will make my point better than this my diatribe aimed at modern Pharisees, who see not as far, you will see.
J. K. Gayle says “Linguists using English often use the borrowed French word patois, which also means “dialect,” to describe the language of Jamaica.”
In fact it’s not linguists in general who do this – they usually refer to the main language of Jamaica as “Jamaican Creole” – but Jamaicans themselves who frequently call the language Patwa. I would suggest that Jamaican linguists who use the term “Patwa” are just using the standard term on Jamaica. The etymology of this word is irrelevant to its use.
The fact that English is the official language is irrelevant too. Jamaican linguists as well as various Ministers of Education have pointed out the educational problems caused by the assumption that Jamaican Creole is just English. But a bilingual approach to education has met with great resistance from people who refuse to recognize that there is any problem at all.
Thank you for your clarifications and additional information, Dr. Smith. Is Krio a variety of the Creole language of Jamaica. Do Jamaicans distinguish Krio and Patwa?