World Language Map

Where is Jamaican Creole English spoken?

Jamaican Creole English (Patwa) is an Indo-European language, spoken in Jamaica and Panama. It is marked on the map by a ringed point.

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Where Jamaican Creole English is spoken

Jamaican Creole English is spoken in 2 countries: Jamaica and Panama. The table gives the share of each country’s people who speak it, from Unicode CLDR, where CLDR has a figure.

CountryShare of populationEstimated speakers
Jamaica95%2,682,524
PanamaNot givenNot given

Estimated speakers are the CLDR percentage applied to CLDR’s own population figure for the country, so they are rough. A country without a figure may still have speakers: it is listed because the language area, or Glottolog’s record, reaches it.

Jamaican Creole English has no area on the map because no open area map covers it. The ringed point is the position Glottolog gives for the language.

How many people speak Jamaican Creole English?

Wikidata gives about 3.2 million speakers (Wikidata, with no source given, 2000). These figures are approximate: they come from different sources, years and definitions of a speaker.

Status: Not endangered. Glottolog lists it as not endangered: it is still being passed on to children.

Where Jamaican Creole English sits in the language family tree

Glottolog classifies Jamaican Creole English as follows, from the largest family down to the language itself.

  1. Indo-European
  2. Classical Indo-European
  3. Germanic
  4. Northwest Germanic
  5. West Germanic
  6. North Sea Germanic
  7. Anglo-Frisian
  8. Anglic
  9. Later Anglic
  10. Middle-Modern English
  11. Macro-English
  12. Guinea Coast Creole English
  13. Caribbean English Creole
  14. Western Caribbean Creole
  15. Jamaicanic
  16. Jamaican Creole English

Related languages

Other languages in the Jamaicanic group:

More about Jamaican Creole English

Codes: ISO 639-3 jam, Glottolog jama1262. Glottolog macroarea: North America.

Questions about Jamaican Creole English

Where is Jamaican Creole English spoken?

Jamaican Creole English is spoken in Jamaica and Panama. Unicode CLDR puts it at 95% of the population of Jamaica, which is about 2,682,524 people. On the map it is shown as a single point, because no open area map covers it.

How many people speak Jamaican Creole English?

Wikidata gives about 3.2 million speakers (Wikidata, with no source given, 2000). Speaker numbers are approximate and differ between sources: counting who is a speaker, and whether to include second-language speakers, is not settled.

Which language family is Jamaican Creole English in?

Glottolog places Jamaican Creole English in the Indo-European family, in the branch Classical Indo-European, Germanic, Northwest Germanic, West Germanic, North Sea Germanic, Anglo-Frisian, Anglic, Later Anglic, Middle-Modern English, Macro-English, Guinea Coast Creole English, Caribbean English Creole, Western Caribbean Creole and Jamaicanic.

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