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As you know, Tia Dalma has a thick Jamaican accent - but has anyone noticed her broken English? (like: "him carve out him heart, lock it away in da chest..."
Since she's actually the goddess Calypso, I wonder whether her accent and broken grammar are part of her curse or not.

Hi! Welcome.

The way I always interpreted Tia Dalma's speech pattern is, even though she's a goddess, she's trapped in a human form. Part of Jack's past is that he was working for the East India Trading Company and was branded a pirate after he freed the people he was supposed to be bringing to the Caribbean to be slaves. I always figured Tia Dalma was one of them, that she was trapped in a human form and that human form had lived in Africa with a tribe. English is a hard language to learn so maybe she wouldn't have that bad grammar with another language.

or, maybe she just chose to talk like that because its part of the mystery of her current human form - tia dalma.


think tia dalma with awesome, unbroken, straight english. kinda loses the mystery, spark, etc., you know?

Originally posted by Jaeh.is.Awesome
or, maybe she just chose to talk like that because its part of the mystery of her current human form - tia dalma.
I tend to agree. Actually, she has a seductive nature, and her broken grammar is kinda attractive

Sad thing, I agree with that. Typically broken English and bad grammar just annoy the spit out of me, but in her case, it works.

Hmm, never thought of that. It's kind of like how Yoda enjoys being small because people underestimate him.

omg! that's me too. I would never flip out if some one tried to tease me by calling me Yoda.

Tia Dalma's English is perfect in it's own way.

Yeah, I got choked up with the way she says, "Him heart." I don't know if perfect English (or perfect any language) could have been so moving.

Originally posted by willofthewisp
Hmm, never thought of that. It's kind of like how Yoda enjoys being small because people underestimate him.
More like his anastrophe

tia's way of speaking is beautiful. she sounds like someone who learnt english in a different country, like somewhere in africa, because when peoplle learn english outside the states, they learn british-english, and then that's mixed with their native accents. and breaking it up is just sexy when you do it right. plus, if you look like tia-dalma, it would be incredibly weird to hear the queen's english coming out of that mouth.

Well, her speech pattern is a little different in AWE than in DMC. Her speech is much clearer and she speaks in regular sentences. It's subtle, but the difference is there.

What do you mean by "regular sentences"?

i have a friend that looks exactly like her.... but doesnt talk all Jamacian like

Speaking quirks are almost always helpful to defining a character.

By the way, in some fanfics she speaks in the third person as well ("ye be helpin' Tia Dalma now", "Tia stay here", etc.) I wonder whether this characteristic would fit her or not.

I think the brocken gramma worked for her in the film it added another angel on her story.

Originally posted by NuttyNik
I think the brocken gramma worked for her in the film it added another angel on her story.
What kind of new angle?

Just because she's a goddess doesn't mean she can speak every language perfectly.

I can't edit my post, but I wanted to add that maybe she was trapped in an actual human's body. It's probably wrong, but maybe it would explain why he talks the way she does, or maybe she just likes to stick to that gimmick.