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Patois, although without a formal definition in linguistics, can be used to describe a language considered as nonstandard. Depending upon the instance, it can refer to pidgins, creoles, dialects, and other forms of native or local speech, but is not commonly applied to jargon or slang, which are vocabulary-based forms of cant. Class distinctions are embedded in the term, drawn between those who speak patois and those who speak the standard or dominant language used in literature and newscasts—the "acrolect" in professional jargon.

The origin of the French word patois is uncertain. One derivation^[1] is from Old French patoier meaning "to handle clumsily, to paw". The language sense may therefore arise from the notion of a clumsy manner of speaking. Alternatively^[2] it may derive from Latin patria (homeland) referring to the localised spread of the language variety.

In France and other Francophone countries, patois has been used to describe non-Parisian French and regional languages such as Breton, Occitan, and Franco-Provençal, since 1643. The word assumes the view of such languages as being backward, countrified, and unlettered, thus is considered by speakers of those languages as offensive when used by outsiders, although speakers may use the term to refer familiarly to their own language (See also: Languages of France.)

Many of the vernacular forms of English spoken in the Caribbean are also referred to as patois (occasionally spelled in this context patwah). It is noted especially in reference to Jamaican Creole from 1934. Often these patois are popularly considered "bastardizations" of English or slang, but cases such as Jamaican are classified with more correctness as a creole language; in fact, in the Francophone Caribbean the analogous term for local variants of French is creole. (See also: Jamaican English and Jamaican Creole.) Patois is also spoken in the Atlantic coast of Costa Rica.

Other examples of patois include Trasianka, Sheng, and Tsotsitaal.

1. ^ Concise Oxford Dictionary
2. ^ Chambers Dictionary