JAMAICASAURUS: The Jamaican Thesaurus & English-to-Patois Dictionary - Common Spellings Version

This book functions as both a translation dictionary and a thesaurus. With some 4,200 English entries and over 15,000 Jamaican results, it is the only translation dictionary to go from English to Jamaican Creole (Patois) and also the only book to function as a thesaurus for the dialect. The Jamaicasaurus thus serves not only foreigners but also native speakers searching for alternate words and expressions, recent slang, and old terms from the past. If you’re a speaker of Jamaican Patois/Patwa/Creole and want to use this book as a thesaurus, simply look up the English equivalent of the Jamaican word or phrase you have in mind to see the various Jamaican synonyms listed. The appendix at the back of the book additionally features lists of Jamaican expletives and exclamations from mild to vulgar, odd curiosities, and the local Jamaican names for 278 important species of plants and trees used in Jamaica for food, medicine, and cultural purposes (listed by scientific name first). Furthermore, and quite importantly, Jamaicasaurus bridges the gap between the common English-based way of spelling Jamaican words and the Cassidy-JLU (or ‘Jamiekan’) system developed by Jamaican linguists. This version of the book displays words in the English-based spelling format, but it also uses the Jamiekan format for sample sentences where they occur. A ‘Jamiekan Spellings Version’, featuring exclusively the Cassidy-JLU (Jamiekan) format, is also available. It has a light blue cover. Read more