Piini Wali Iz Jumeikan Pikni Fren (Fireflies are Friends of Jamaican Children)

About this poem

As a luminescent click beetle belonging to the family of Elateridae, the Jamaican Caribbean firefly called “blinky” or even more intimately by Jamaican children as peenie wallie (“piini wali” in Standard Jamaican Creole spelling), is adored by Jamaican children, especially by those who live in the hinterland and mountainous regions of Jamaica, and who use and rely largely and more securely on lanterns for light at night, looking upon the little blue beetles or blinkies, or peenie wallies, as their nighttime host, companions, and friends. Folktales have been written about these fireflies and they are popularized in the local language of Patois (Patwa) or Jamaican Creole. This bilingual (English and Jamaican Creole) poem introduces to a wider audience the love of Jamaican children for their local varieties of fireflies. I have used the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) system for the writing of the poem’s Jamaican Creole version to maintain orthographic standardization and orthographic (writing) consistency, with particular regard to the use of the Jamaican Creole vowel system, which varies extensively from that of English, with the intent to point out that Jamaican Creole is not merely a variety or dialect of English, but an autonomous Creole language with its own rules of grammar and its own unique pronunciation that sets it apart from and independent of English. Admittedly its lexical items are of English origin in most cases, but equally so, its vocabulary, like all Creole languages, has been strongly influenced by Portuguese, Spanish, French, and of course the indigenous local languages of West Africa, particularly Nigeria and Ghana. As a means of assisting the reader with the pronunciation of the poem in Jamaican Creole, I have included here a very short and sketchy pronunciation description of the vowel system of Jamaican Creole for readers to have a better sense of how words are pronounced in that language. I have not addressed the issue of articulation and tonal features, since this is not the intent of this exercise. Readers should also be aware that I have not addressed the matter of the consonants of Jamaican Creole. Nevertheless, it is important to at least state some of the “peculiarities” that pertain to this poem with regard to the pronunciation of some of the words. Thus, in words beginning with initial “h” in English spelling and pronunciation (e.g., “high”), the initial “h” sound is “dropped” (not articulated) in Jamaican Creole (JMC), resulting in the Jamaican lexical equivalent as “ai” (a diphthong sound in English). Interestingly, words beginning with the letter “e” in English traditionally and consistently are pronounced in Jamaican Creole with an initial “h” sound, such that the English word “egg” is pronounced as “heg” in Jamaican Creole. Let’s now look briefly at the Jamaican Creole vowel system: a=ah (short a sound as in “man”) a= long ah (as in “want;” or as “gaan” in JMC) ai= dipthong ai (as in “night;” “nait” in JMC) e=eh (short e sound as in “beg”) ei= dipthong ei ( as in “pain;” “pein” in JMC) o=oh (short vowel sound “done;” “dong” in JMC) o=oh (long vowel sound “no;” “nuo” in JMC) u=uh (short vowel sound “look;” “luk” in JMC) u=uh (long vowel sound “moon;”muun” in JMC. It is hoped that this brief introduction to the vowel system of Jamaican Creole will be of sufficient benefit for readers desirous of obtaining a reasonably correct pronunciation of the Jamaican language poem that I have composed. more »