To celebrate the fact that we’re launching an amazing new trip to Jamaica in a few days (watch this space!), we thought you all might enjoy a mini Jamaican language lesson. While the official language of Jamaica is English, you’ll soon hear something a little unfamiliar if you visit this incredible island: patois! Developed by the slaves who were taken from Africa to work on the Jamaican sugar fields, patois blends African and English words and is still widely spoken today.

Learning a bit of patois while you’re in Jamaica is loads of fun and means you’ll be able to understand what’s going on around you. Here are just a few words and phrases to give you a head start!

1. GWAAN?: What’s happening?

2. LAWD MI FEEL PECKISH!: Oh my God I am hungry!

3. NO PROBLEM MAN!: Everything is OK!

4. SOON COME!: Just a minute!

5. SHOP TILL YOU DROP!: Buy everything!

6. GANJA: Herb, marijuana

7. HAIL: Hello

8. HARD EARS: Stubborn, doesn't listen

9. IGNORANT: Short-tempered, easy to vex, irate.

10. IRIE: A Greeting. Also, adj: excellent, cool, highest, powerful, pleasing

11. JA, JAM-DOWN: Jamaica

12. JAH KNOW: Lord knows

13. SELASSIE, KING OF KINGS, LORD OF LORDS, CONQUERING LION OF JUDAH: Rastas revere Haile Selassie as the personification of the Almighty

14. JAMMIN: To be having a good time, to be dancing

15. JELLY: A young coconut, full of jelly

16. KYAAN: Can't

17. LICK: To hit

18. LIKKLE MORE: See you later

19. (TOO) LIKKY-LIKKY : Title given to those who like to eat any food they encounter, without discretion

20. MAGA: Thin (from meagre)

21. MAROON: Free black warrior-communities which successfully resisted British hegemony during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries

22. MASH IT UP: A huge success

23. BABYLON: The corrupt establishment, the "system”, "Church and State”, the police, a policeman

24. BAFAN: Clumsy, awkward

25. BREDREN: One's fellow male Rastas

26. CROSSES: Problems, vexations, trials, bad luck, misfortunes

27. CUTCHIE: Pipe for communal smoking

28. DAWTA: A girl, woman, "sister", girlfriend

29. DEAD WOOD: (the w is silent) A man that can't perform sexually, impotent

30. DON: One who is respected, master of a situation

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