The Cassidy/JLU orthography () is a phonemic system for writing Jamaican Patois originally developed by the linguist Frederic Cassidy. It is used as the writing system for the Jamaican Wikipedia, known in Patois, and written using the Cassidy/JLU system, as the Jumiekan Patwa Wikipidia.
Background Patois has long been written with various respellings compared to English so that, for example, the word "there" might be written , , or , and the word "three" as , , or . Standard English spelling is often used and a nonstandard spelling sometimes becomes widespread even though it is neither phonetic nor standard (e.g. for , 'child').
Creation Cassidy advocated for creole languages to use an orthography, or writing style, that did not rely on European spelling conventions.
Cassidy's orthography, initially proposed in 1961, uses a phonemic system that closely reproduces the sound of the language. The Cassidy System was later adopted and modified by the Jamaican Language Unit (JLU) at the University of the West Indies.
Development In 2002, the Jamaican Language Unit was set up at the University of the West Indies at Mona to begin standardizing the language, with the aim of supporting non-English-speaking Jamaicans according to their constitutional guarantees of equal rights, as services of the state are normally provided in English, which a significant portion of the population cannot speak fluently. The vast majority of such persons are speakers of Jamaican Patois. It was argued that failure to provide services of the state in a language in such general use or discriminatory treatment by officers of the state based on the inability of a citizen to use English violates the rights of citizens. The proposal was made that freedom from discrimination on the ground of language be inserted into the Charter of Rights.
Comparison with standard English The JLU standardized the Jamaican alphabet as follows: + Short vowels Letter Patois English i sik sick e bel bell a ban band o kot cut u kuk cook + Long vowels Letter Patois English ii tii tea aa baal ball uu shuut shoot + DiphthongsIPA Letter Patois English/ia/ kiek cake/ua/ uo gruo grow/ai/ ai bait bite/au/ ou kou cow Nasal vowels are written with -hn, as in kyaahn (can't) and iihn (isn't it?) + ConsonantsIPA Letter Patois English/b/ b biek bake/d/ d daag dog/tʃ/ ch choch church/f/ f fuud food/g/ g guot goat/h/ h hen hen/dʒ/ j joj judge/k/ k kait kite/l/ l liin lean/m/ m man man/n/ n nais nice/ŋ/ ng sing sing/p/ p piil peel/r/ r ron run/s/ s sik sick/ʃ/ sh shout shout/t/ t tuu two/v/ v vuot vote/w/ w wail wild/j/ y yong young/z/ z zuu zoo/ʒ/ zh vorzhan version h is written according to local pronunciation, so that hen (hen) and en (end) are distinguished in writing for speakers of western Jamaican, but not for those of central Jamaican.
Publications In 2012 the Bible Society, in collaboration with the JLU, translated the New Testament into Jamaican using the Cassidy orthography, it was published as Di Jamiekan Nyuu Testiment.
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