During Sunday church services and private celebrations in Jamaica, Christmas week prayers are being flavored with the first patois version of a familiar biblical account of Jesus’ birth.

Based on the conviction that Scripture is best understood in a person’s spoken tongue, the Caribbean island’s bible society has started a new holiday tradition with audio and written versions of the Gospel of Luke in patois, or Creole – Jamaica’s unofficial language.

Proponents of the patois versions of Luke argue that since many Jamaicans have difficulty understanding standard English, it is wrong to have the holy book of this overwhelmingly Christian nation only in a “foreign” tongue. A patois translation of the entire New Testament is expected in August 2012, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Jamaica’s independence.