Jamaicasaurus: Jamaican Thesaurus & English-to-Patois Translation Dictionary: Common Jamaican Spellings Edition

by Eric Rosenfeld, Joseph Farquharson (Editor), Byron Jones (Editor)

This book functions as both a translation dictionary and a thesaurus. With 3,781 entries and 14,000 translations and synonyms, it is not only the first translation dictionary to go from English to Jamaican Creole (Patois), but also the first book that can function as a Jamaican thesaurus. 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. 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 displayed. 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 an English-based spelling format, but it also uses the other format for sample sentences where they occur. A ‘Jamiekan Spellings Version’, featuring exclusively the Cassidy-JLU format, is also available. It has a light blue cover.

220 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 13, 2017

Reviews

[Angeliki Kyros · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best yet

Great info and very easy to use. I would love to have an audio version of this book highly recommend