And keep it as "mi" when it means "I"? It's pronounced the same whether it means "me," "I," or "my," pretty much.

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Keep in mind with the following, I'm not saying I'm right. I'm just providing the rationale behind the answers I already provided, and those were provided with an assumption that the bulk of the readership would be English speakers who aren't too familiar with Patois. If I were writing for a Jamaican readership (and had any knowledge of Patois--which I don't), I would spell it the way a Jamaican would expect to see it spelled (if there is such a thing).

I can see that -- I don't think it would overly break the reading of it, except "mi" is used to mean "my" or "I" in that passage, and that might be misleading.

In other English dialects (some regions of England, as well as Ireland and Scotland), people say "me" as the first person possessive pronoun, that's why I'd go with "me" (assuming the vowel sound where you have "mi" is closer to a long "e" than to a long "i"). Sometimes, English speakers who use "me" in place of "my" say the word in a way that sounds closer to "may" (although shortened), but I'd still write "me".

I'd change "di" to "de".

Why? It's not pronounced that way, and it's not that much closer to the word it means, to my eye.

"De" is closer in spelling to "the" than is "di".

Also, I'd remove the excess letters (caan), because the English language reader is mentally primed to see that as a typo

That's a very good point -- but if you've set up with alternate spelling, haven't you altered their expectations? Risky, though.

Probably, but I'd want to get across that there were differences, without making it stick out. Um, let me see if I can give an example that explains better than that explanation. If I were writing a rural Southerner, I am not going to spell the word "pen" as "pin" just because the Southerner pronounces P-E-N as though it were a homophone to P-I-N (did I mean homonym--whatever, as if it sounded as though it were spelled the same as 'pin'). In his dialogue passages, I will probably spell "forgetting" as "forgettin'", but I won't spell it as "forgittin'".

That said, do Patois speakers consider Patois to be an English dialect, or its own language?

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Maybe just m', then? At least for when it means "my."

Oh, if it's a case of this, like m'dear, and m'lady, that's what I'd do, too.

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FWIW, erika, for better or worse, I forget about the chair until someone reminds me. Sometimes to your annoyance, I'm sure, because I then don't think about things like stairs when you're going to be visiting.

Because my whole experience with you is mostly in this environment, where all that's important is that your head works (and you know, not naming names, but a lot of people with working legs have faulty heads), it never really occurs to me to think about your legs when reading you.

So there's no crip baggage, really. It's all just honest. I think maybe part of it is that my head doesn't work right most of the time. I'm a mental illness crip. So I worry sometimes people are taking things easier on me, and they're telling me I'm bright and smart and a good writer so I won't go kill myself.

And because of that, I tend to hold the opinions of people I don't know much higher than people I do know. They can't be using the Allyson is Craxy Filter if they don't know I'm Craxy.

In this environment, where all of us are sitting on our asses and typing, the crip stuff doesn't matter, I think. Ballroom dancing class? Different story.

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assuming the vowel sound where you have "mi" is closer to a long "e" than to a long "i"

It's like a short "e," and I can't make my brain read "me" as having that short a vowel sound. Because I know I know that word, and it's different. I'd think that to someone who hasn't seen "mi" much, it'd be easy to separate it from "me" -- is that of value to the foreign reader?

"De" is closer in spelling to "the" than is "di".

Well, yeah, but as I noted, not much. And it's pronounced differently (in fact, I think that we use "de" or "dey" for the patois for "there"). Is it still worth it then?

That said, do Patois speakers consider Patois to be an English dialect, or its own language?

It's a creole. It has its own vocabulary ("nyam" is just going to be "nyam", for instance) and grammar (you'll see "good good" where you might expect "better" for instance) grabbed from other languages, as well as pronounciations (lack of "th," for one).

I am not going to spell the word "pen" as "pin" just because the Southerner pronounces P-E-N as though it were a homophone to P-I-N

And that's pretty much why I'd be hesitant to use "me" for "mi."

Bear in mind -- .05% of your readers might have the slightest fucking clue about how patois is supposed to look. The line though, of accuracy and respect -- well, it's going to vary with a million factors.

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Reading anything that's not super close to standard English is tricky for the non-speaker. I mean, I pretty much had to read all of Trainspotting out loud, and even then, there was stuff I didn't get, with the combination of accents and vocabulary.

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Yeah. It's just that,if I'm letting people into my life, then I'm letting them in there too because it affects the way I live. The thing the 'net gives me is more of a choice than I get at the mall because I don't have to be obvious until you know me. It was just a lucky thing I asked, Allyson, because multi-level housing is a very rare thing around here...it wasn't my first thought either, but an instinct or maybe a plastic lion, prompted me to ask. And yes, most definitely on the head thing. That is why I've asked one person to come in here in four years. He said he was too busy. The other Buffy fans I know are too Lame. In one instance, in both senses.

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And that's pretty much why I'd be hesitant to use "me" for "mi."

Which word is a Patois speaker saying--do you know? A person in the British Isles is saying "me coat" or whatever. If a Jamaican is saying "my" and just pronounces it differently, then I might even go with "my". I still sort of like Hil's suggestion of m'.

Bear in mind -- .05% of your readers might have the slightest fucking clue about how patois is supposed to look. The line though, of accuracy and respect -- well, it's going to vary with a million factors.

This is why I wouldn't write it. And you know this means I'm going to get bitten by some plot bunny heavily featuring native Jamaicans who speak Patois exclusively. *shaky fist*

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Which word is a Patois speaker saying--do you know?

I've never thought about it. I don't know if that's because I'm thinking of Patois as a separate entity, but "mi" means "I," "me," and "my." And that's as far as I'd taken it. Not that they're saying "me" in a Jamaican accent instead of "I."

That's also the reason that spelling them differently is greeted with blankness on my part -- I mean, they're the same word to me.

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FTR, I would not be confused by reading "mi" like that.

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