What if Jamaican Patwa and West African Pidgin aren’t broken English but living African languages?

After my viral interview with Professor Hubert Devonish on the Caribbean roots of words like “pikini” and “sabi”, the diaspora responded with love — but not without backlash. Some people in the comments called us liars and a conversation about language and unity became distracted by a fight about identity.

This podcast is my response.

Join me as I unpack why I stand by the theory that Caribbean languages like Patwa and surinamese creole carry a deep African linguistic history seen in west African pidgins till today! It is the reason why we must unlearn colonial ideas about what counts as “proper” language.

We’ll explore linguistic resistance, the Middle Passage, and how African languages didn’t die they adapted, survived, and returned.

This is about more than words. It’s about memory, power, and reclaiming what’s ours.

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