Professor Hubert Devonish of the College of the West Indies has been one of many strongest advocates preventing for Jamaican Patois as a Language. He has created a writing and spelling system for Jamaican Patois. This month we now have a dialog with him about Jamaican Patois as a Language.
Q: When did you come to the conclusion that Jamaican patois ought to be acknowledged as a separate language?
I’m not Jamaican however Guyanese. My language consciousness began in Guyana in relation to Guyanese Creole or as we time period it, Creolese. In the midst of my Excessive College training, I had two academics from England and one from the US. Individually, they talked in school about the truth that Guyanese didn’t, in the midst of regular interplay, communicate English. That was a revelation to me. Then, a widely known researcher of Guyanese folklore who ran a radio programme on Caribbean folklore and traditions, Wordsworth McAndrew, visited our college.
That, coupled with the printed of Anansii tales on the radio, started to develop in me an consciousness that Creolese was a separate language from English, with its personal historical past and guidelines. In a while, I found that the individuals who research Caribbean Creole languages are linguists and that the topic to check on the College of Guyana, to pursue that space was Linguistics.
I finally did a Ph.D. in Linguistics and ended up in Jamaica the place the language state of affairs is kind of just like that of Guyana. As well as, the Jamaican Language is kind of just like Guyanese Creolese, so the carry over to me taking an identical place on Jamaican to that which I had taken on Creolese in Guyana was simple.
Q: Who’re your greatest supporter and the largest detractors? Is it the intellects or politicians or the grassroots folks?
Many individuals are ambivalent on the language query. And that spans the whole spectrum of social teams and courses. We did a National Language Attitude Survey of Jamaica in 2005. 1000 respondents were surveyed right across Jamaica.
The outcomes present that about 70 % of the inhabitants would (i) assist Jamaican being made an official language alongside English, (ii) assist Jamaican and English getting used alongside one another as languages of literacy instructing and of instruction in colleges in Jamaica, (iii) regard favourably the Minister of Finance doing a price range presentation in Parliament in Jamaican. This helps earlier analysis carried out across the 12 months 2000, during which it was discovered {that a} vital majority of member of the Decrease Home of Parliament would vote in favour of a invoice that will declare Jamaican an official language alongside English.
A key side of the Language Perspective Survey is that youthful persons are extra beneficial to Jamaican than older folks, that city persons are extra beneficial than rural folks, and that males are extra beneficial than females. The profile of the strongest opposition to the Jamaican Language is an older, rural feminine. The strongest supporter can be a youthful, city, male. Clearly, these signify extremes and the fact is that assist and opposition come from all quarters and classes. The important thing level is that, regardless of the outpourings of the chattering courses within the mass media, the proof factors to a major majority of the inhabitants in assist.
Q: What do you say to the critics who say Patois is a slang that continually adjustments?
I can current them with the oldest recognized textual content within the Jamaican Language, written round 1783. Any speaker of Jamaican within the 21st century can perceive that textual content. A lot for the nonsense about Jamaican continually altering. So too does English. The Nineteen Sixties slangs akin to ‘groovy’, ‘sock it to me’, ‘proper on’, are lengthy useless and never comprehensible to individuals who weren’t round at the moment. So, Jamaican too has slang, which comes and goes.
The core of a language, nevertheless, is kind of fixed. ‘Pikni’ to imply ‘youngster’ and ‘nyam’ to imply ‘eat’ have been round for so long as the Jamaican language has been in existence. That will be about 350 years.
Q: What would Jamaican patois be referred to as? Wouldn’t it be Jamaican, Patwa or Patois?
Jamaican, in the identical method that the language of Spain is Spanish, of Turkey, Turkish, Norway Norwegian, and many others. Patois is the time period initially used for regional dialects of French in France, and has been prolonged to described French-lexicon Creoles of the Caribbean, like St. Lucian. In actual fact, the spelling ‘Patwa’ has been used to explain St. Lucian French Creole. Essentially the most correct label is, due to this fact, Jamaican.
Q: You and your crew have created some “construction” round Jamaican patois with spelling and pronunciation system. How was this technique developed when there are such a lot of completely different flavors of patois?
We didn’t create ‘construction’ for Jamaican. All languages have a construction to ensure that one to have the ability to use them to speak. The one factor that was developed was a normal writing system for the language. We didn’t develop it. Relatively, Frederic Cassidy, a linguist of Jamaican origin, developed it and revealed it in a ebook referred to as ‘Jamaica Speak’, in 1963 or thereabouts. We on the Jamaica Language Unit have barely modified it into what we name the Cassidy-JLU writing system for the language.
Q: What was your greatest problem growing the Jamaican patois system?
None. It was already there and simply wanted tweaking. The true problem is how we encourage people who find themselves literate in English to study a brand new writing system for Jamaican. Many would a lot choose the established technique of utilizing the English writing system to signify, albeit inaccurately, the sounds of Jamaican.
Q: Inform us about this system you probably did within the colleges to show each patois and English to college students? What was the aim? What are the outcomes of this system?
This was a bilingual programme which taught literacy, in addition to all the first college topics, in Jamaican and in English. This ran for 4 years, from Grades 1-4. The youngsters developed excessive ranges of literacy in each languages.
Q: Do you propose to do that program once more sooner or later?
Maybe, in a state of affairs the place we’re significantly better funded and may educate the youngsters in conditions that are nearer to the perfect than these which usually exist in major colleges in Jamaica.
Q: Would the associated fee to translate books and different supplies be prohibitive to instructing patois in colleges?
Not with the existence of all the brand new applied sciences which permit for ssmall-scalereproduction of written supplies. As for the translations, these had been carried out by finishing college students at UWI, within the self-discipline of linguistics. They did the translations as a part of a summer season internship within the Dept. of Language, Linguistics & Philosophy, below my supervision.
Q: Have you ever seen progress with folks accepting patois as a language?
Within the Language Perspective Survey, it’s clear that already near 70% of the inhabitants already accomplish that. The issue is one in every of find out how to have their voices be heard.
Q: Is there an effort by your crew to get the federal government to acknowledge it as an official language in Jamaica?
At this stage, the main focus is on attempting to have the liberty from discrimination on the bottom of language included throughout the new Constitution of Rights to the Jamaican Structure. This may oblige the federal government and all establishments of the state to offer companies to the Jamaican public in a language of their selection, which for a lot of can be Jamaican. That will be a primary step in the direction of official recognition of the language.
Q: Have you ever seen one other comparable “debates” with languages in different components of the world? Have you ever seen a profitable mannequin you’ll be able to observe to get patois acknowledged as a language?
The Seychelles, with a French Creole as official language, Curacao with Papiamentu (a Portuguese Creole, as an official language) and Haiti, with a French Creole as official language, current just some examples.
Q: The place do you assume this debate of Jamaican patois being an official language 10 years from now?
The language would have achieved official standing by then.
Q: Thanks on your time. Do you may have any closing ideas?
The battle continues.
