Jamaicasaurus: Jamaican Thesaurus & English-to-Patois Dictionary: Jamiekan Spellings Version, 2020 Edition

by Eric Rosenfeld, Joseph Farquharson, Byron Jones

This is the 'Jamiekan Spellings' version of the book. The Common Spellings version has a black cover. General With 3,781 entries and 14,000 translations and synonyms, The Jamaicasaurus is both a translation dictionary and a thesaurus. It's the first translation dictionary to go from English to Jamaican Creole (Patois) and 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 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, the Jamaicasaurus bridges the gap between the common English-based way of writing Patois words and the Cassidy-JLU (or ‘Jamiekan’) system developed by Jamaican linguists to more consistently and accurately represent how those words really sound. This light-blue-covered version of the book uses that latter format, the Jamiekan format. It’s easy to learn and worth trying. The other version of the Jamaicasaurus, featuring common English-based spellings, is also available on Amazon and features a black cover.

355 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 6, 2020