Websters Jamaican - English Thesaurus Dictionary

If you are learning Jamaican, this book was not created for you, and you should not purchase it. It was created for completely fluent mother-tongue speakers of Jamaican who already know the full meaning of Jamaican words, but who need to learn how a single English translation of a Jamaican word may have ambiguous meanings in the English language. It is designed for bi-lingual education for the non-English reader who wants to improve English-language test scores covering English synonyms. Synonyms may bear no relationship to a translation word (e.g. “love” can signify both an emotion and a score of zero in tennis; zero, while being a synonym of love, is likely to be a bad translation to the original Jamaican headword). This is a regular English thesaurus, like Roget’s, but the entries are sorted alphabetically using headwords from Jamaican. It cannot be used to translate between the two languages, but may help a fluent speaker of Jamaican who is learning basic English, to learn the ambiguities of the English language and its vocabulary. The synonyms for each headword are not translations; Jamaican words are used to facilitate “looking up” English synonyms. Prior to purchase, educators and students should review the contents of this unique form of thesaurus which is free to view on Google books, or using Amazon’s “look inside” function. Public domain translations used were contributed to Webster’s Online Dictionary and have originated from uncited volunteers, native speakers, professional translators, field linguists and academics (not by the editor of the thesaurus). If you would like citation for any translations, make suggestions, note errors, or contribute in any other way, please email Philip M. Parker at INSEAD, who will periodically update this series. Reproduction rights are granted to educators.