Meanings
- Caribbeanderogatoryuncountablea local creole language, such as Antillean Creole or Jamaican Creole
Patois is making (St. Lucians) backwards; it is nothing but palawala and it is merely a ploy to keep us back.
2013 (quoting from 1990), Crossing Cultural Boundaries: Explorations in Multilingual Teaching and Learning2 more examples
Prior to her school days, my mother spoke French Patois [Antillean Creole] better than she spoke English. Her knowledge of Patois declined once she was at school as the nuns forbade the children from speaking their "Pala Wala" language in the school yard because they did not understand what the children were saying.
1999, Caribbean-Canadians Celebrate Carnival: Costumes and Inter-generational RelationshipsSuch reservations were more prominent in the private high schools where teachers were vehemently opposed to the use of JC [Jamaican Creole] in education. Indeed, one teacher (Jill) expressed anger and outrage that researchers, such as myself, seem to have an obsession with this "gibberish 'palawala' nonsense".
2020, Wilton George Lodge, “What’s in a name? The power of the English language in secondary school science education”, in Cultural Studies of Science Education - Caribbeancountablea member of a community speaking such a language
So many West Indians from the smaller Caribbean islands arrived... that to this day at Wismar, there is a residential area called the “Pala-Wala” section. "Pala-Wala" is the name locals call migrants from certain West Indies islands.
2011, Barbara P. Josiah, Migration, Mining, and the African Diaspora: Guyana in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Springer
Origin
- Frenchparler
- EnglishPalawala
Probably at least partly from French parler, with repetition to make it sound like babbling.
More words from French
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
Palawala. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Palawala
“Palawala.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Palawala. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Palawala,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Palawala.
Source: Palawala on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.