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Home >> Barbados >> Bajan Dialect Even tho English is the official spoken language in Barbados, Barbadians also processes a sweet accent that people all over the world love. It's basically a combination of the African and British languages, and can be a bit tricky to follow at times. The mixture of West African idioms and expressions along with British English produce this unique Barbadian dialect. It is somewhat similar to the dialects of neighboring Caribbean islands, as many of the other Caribbean islands are based on Irish- or Scottish-based English pronunciation. I will try to break down how the Bajan dialect works. There is no past tense used, for instance Barbadians would say "I tell he so" in stead of "I told him so". There is an overuse of subject pronouns, for example "call she" instead of "call her", or "he book" instead "his book". There are no "th" in a lot of words like dem, ting, dat, dese, dis to name a few. Some words are even replaced by completely different words, examples are brek and break, wuh and what, gine and going. They are noticeable Patterns with Bajan dialect, for instance "d" replaces "th" in many words. "ih", "eh", "uh" and "ah", occur in many expressions as well. Final consonants are not sounded, with words like "respec" for "respect" and "dus" for "dust". Also in Bajan, adjectives repeated once or twice, like "I real hungry hungry". There are other patterns and ways with Bajan dialect, you can see a list for commonly used words and phrases below.
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