Frederic Cassidy, a Jamaican linguist, developed a method of presenting the Jamaican language in writing, in 1961. The system is very easy to learn. Because Jamaican is a language in its own right and not just a form of English, a word which is pronounced the same way in these two languages, is often written differently. The sounds which the letters carry in the Cassidy system for Jamaican are different from those which they carry in English. The system presented in this handbook, which we call 'the Cassidy-JLU Writing System' is one based on that developed by Frederic Cassidy with some modifications made by the Jamaican Language Unit.