Meaning
Happen — the compressed pronunciation of 'happen', where the '-pen' collapses to a hummed 'm', giving 'hap'm'. 'Wah hap'm?' means what happened, or what's going on, a common everyday greeting and question. It shows the same swallowing of the consonant as 'sump'm' (something), a natural feature of quick Jamaican speech, and it does the plain work of 'happen' — asking or telling what has occurred, what is going on, or what came to pass — in its worn-down, rapid-fire spoken form.
Examples
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Wah hap'm to yuh?
What happened to you?
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Nutten nuh hap'm yet.
Nothing has happened yet.
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Tell mi wah hap'm.
Tell me what happened.
Origin
A compressed pronunciation of 'happen' — the '-pen' collapsing to a hummed 'm'. Same pattern as 'sump'm' (something).
How it’s used
A pronunciation variant of 'happen'; 'wah hap'm' overlaps with the greeting 'whappen'. See [[whappen]], [[sumpm]].