Jamaican Patois Translator

"where are you? i've been waiting forever" went into this Jamaican Patois translator and came back as "Weh yuh deh? Mi a wait fi long time." Shorter than the English. Sharper too, if I'm honest.

It flips the other way as well. Paste in whatever your bredda typed from Montego Bay and you get plain English back, so nobody has to nod along pretending they caught it.

What Does Wah Gwaan Mean?

It's "what's going on," squashed into two words. Hello? Wah gwaan. How are you? Also wah gwaan. The easy answer is "mi deh yah," which means you're here and doing alright, nothing fancy.

Patois Words It Leans On

These turned up most in my test runs. Spelling wobbles a lot in real life (yuh, yu, you), so I've used the versions people actually type.

Patois	Plain English
mi	I, me, my
yuh	you, your
unu	you all
di	the
weh	where, which
deh	there, is at
nuh	don't, not
cyaan	can't
fi	to, for
likkle	little
pickney	child
bredda	brother, or a close friend
yaad	home
nyam	eat
irie	good, all fine
soon come	I'll be there soon
tek time	be careful
big up	respect, a shout-out

Why I Didn't Just Swap Words

A lookup list would've been the lazy route. You becomes yuh, the becomes di, done by lunch. Except then "I am tired" comes out "mi am tired," and nobody in Kingston has ever said that. Patois drops the am. It sticks dem on the back of a noun to make more than one (di gyal dem, the girls), and "mi a come" is I'm coming. So a model does the work here, with a long list of rules I kept adding to.

Miss Lou is the name to know. Louise Bennett-Coverley wrote and performed in Patois on radio and stage for decades, back when teachers smacked it out of kids as bad English, and by the time she died in Toronto in 2006 she'd been given Jamaica's Order of Merit for it. Then in 2012 the Bible Society of the West Indies put out Di Jamiekan Nyuu Testiment, the first New Testament in the language, reportedly costing about US$350,000. Its spelling comes from the linguist Frederic Cassidy. Some churches loved it, and some pastors were furious.

Bredren Isn't Your Brother

"my little brother ate all my food again and im so mad" was test one. Out came "mi likkle bredren." Wrong word. Bredren is your crew, the guys you lime with on a Sunday. Your actual little brother, the one eating your food, is a bredda. That's a whole line in the prompt now.

Test two, "sorry im running late, be there in 10," came back "mi deh ya in 10." Mi deh yah means you're here already. Late is "mi reach inna 10." Or soon come, which can mean ten minutes or an hour and a half, depending on who's saying it and how good the dominoes game is.

Three was backwards. "unu pickney dem tek time pon di road" turned into "Your children take their time on the road." Tek time means be careful! Now it says "You kids, be careful on the road," like an auntie yelling after a bus in Half Way Tree.

Runs Straight Out of the Box

Copied from the output box after the fixes, lowercase and all.

What I typed	What came back
where are you? i've been waiting forever	Weh yuh deh? Mi a wait fi long time.
that food was so good, thank you auntie	dat food so good, tanks yuh auntie
i'm tired, going home now, see you tomorrow	mi tired, mi a go yaad now, see yuh tomorrow.
be careful driving home tonight	Tek care when yuh a drive home tonight.
mi soon come, mi a nyam likkle food first	I'll be there soon, I'm eating a little food first.
Wah gwaan bredda, mi deh yah, jus a cool	What's up, brother? I'm here, just chilling.

Type 10 and you get 10. Names don't get touched either. I was strict about that one, because a translator that quietly moves your meeting to half past is worse than no translator at all.

Those last two went backwards, Patois in, English out. "On my way, just eating first" is the most Jamaican excuse for lateness I've ever read.

What It Won't Say

No bad words. Patois has some famous ones, and if you've ever watched a dancehall clash you know exactly which. They're off, even if you type something rude. It also skips the "ya mon" on every line that tourists expect. Real people don't talk like a souvenir T-shirt from the airport.

I'd send people from here to the British Slang Translator next, mostly because half of London now says wagwan and has no clue where it came from. The Cockney Rhyming Slang Translator is the old East End stuff, apples and pears. The rest sit on the translators page.

Asked at the Bus Stop

Is Jamaican Patois a language or a dialect? A language, most linguists say. They file it as an English-based creole. Try telling a Jamaican grandmother it's just bad English and see how far you get.

What does "soon come" mean? I'm on my way. Officially. In practice it covers anything from "I'm parking" to "I haven't found my shoes yet."

What's the Jamaican slang for brother? Bredda. It covers your actual brother and your closest friend. A whole gang of friends is bredren, and yes, that one tripped my prompt up.

Can it turn Patois back into English? Yep. No button for it either, it just notices. "Tek time" comes back as be careful, which took me three goes to get right.

Is the spelling right? It's the everyday spelling people text with, not the Cassidy system from that Bible. Both count. Nobody on WhatsApp writes "Jamiekan."