Ford’s Patois ‘normal’: linguist
A Kingston, Jamaica-based linguistics professor has affirmed that Mayor Rob Ford indeed appeared to show a good passing knowledge of Jamaican Creole in his inebriated Monday night rant, but that his speech was not necessarily vulgar.
“His language, in that context in Jamaica, would not be out of place,” wrote Hubert Devonish, a professor of linguistics at the University of the West Indies’ Jamaican language unit, writing in an email to the National Post.
Although Mr. Ford’s speech is indeed laced with Jamaican expletives, the professor noted that the mayor was speaking to fellow men at a late night venue, in this case the Etobicoke restaurant Steak Queen.
“In fact, in a male dominated domain such as that, in casual conversation amongst friends, such language is normal and would not be considered obscene,” wrote Mr. Devonish.
The professor is one of very few researchers to have published a scholarly paper in Jamaican Creole, and has been a strong advocate for having the Caribbean dialect recognized as an official language.
In the one-minute smartphone video of Mr. Ford’s rant, Mr. Devonish identified four separate expressions that were “identifiably Jamaican.”
The first — and most repeated expression — is the expletive “bomba klaat.” As the linguist explained, the word is a combination of “bomba” (vulva) and “klaat” (cloth), which combine to form an obscene term for menstrual cloth.
The second is when Mr. Ford is expressing frustration that Police Chief Bill Blair failed to meet his budget-cutting targets. The mayor says “nuo moni, no moni, cha!” It means, obviously enough, “no money, no money, + expression of annoyance,” wrote Mr. Devonish.
The third is the most complex. Mr. Ford says “yu nuo wa di raas klaat,” which translates roughly to “you know what, a--wipe?” Said Mr. Devonish, “raas” means “buttocks, and together with “klaat” is an expletive meaning “cloth used to wipe the buttocks.”
Mr. Devonish also heard “so it go,” which he translated as “that’s the way things are/ that’s the way it is.”
Altogether, although some of the words seem quite rude, Mr. Devonish said they are typical among friends, and that he could often hear similar language from colleagues on the University of the West Indies campus.
“Obviously, in other contexts, at meetings, in classrooms, in banks and public places, particularly where children might be within earshot, such language would be deemed extremely inappropriate and vulgar,” he wrote.
It is not known where Mr. Ford learned the expressions, and Monday night’s secretly captured exchange was certainly the first time his usage of Patois has been exhibited in public.
As the mayor explained on Tuesday, “it’s how I speak with some of my friends.”
24 Jan 2014
National Post
By Tristin Hopper National Post thopper@nationalpost.com Twitter.com/TristinHopper