Cooper

In Jamaica, language is one of the primary domains in which all-out class warfare is constantly waged. You are as you speak: high class or low; uptown or down; bright or dunce; cultured or not. Assumptions are routinely made about your intelligence - your very humanity - based on the language you primarily use to express yourself.

English is the official language of the nation. It is the language of social and political power. This is the legacy of British colonial rule. The ultimate triumph of conquest is that you're forced to speak like your conquerors. Rather grudgingly, I have to admit that if you're going to be colonised by Europeans you might as well be colonised by the English - rather than say the Portuguese - since English has emerged as the great world language of the modern age.

The global dominance of English makes us assume a very narrow-minded attitude to language in Jamaica. We've bought into the English snobbery about their language. Most Europeans are bilingual. But not the English. They already speak English so of course they don't need to learn a foreign language!

BAREFOOT NATION LANGUAGE

We do have an unofficial language in Jamaica. The popular names for it are 'patois' and 'dialect.' Academics tend to use 'Creole,' 'Jamaican Creole,' or 'Jamaican.' I like 'Jamaican' best because it seems to settle the issue of the relationship between language, nationality and state power. Kamau Brathwaite, Barbadian poet, historian, and cultural critic, coined the term 'nation language' for languages like Jamaican.

Though Jamaican has no official status as a national language, it is, nevertheless, the mother tongue of the vast majority of us. It is the language of family; the language of love (and abuse); the language of intimacy. Jamaican is the language of politicians on the election trail. It is the language of entertainment and advertising. It is the language of heart and head.

Powerful speakers of English in Jamaica usually disdain this language. The novelist John Hearne once described Jamaican as a 'barefoot language'. Language, yes. But barely so. Since languages don't wear shoes it's obvious that it's really barefoot people he means. Poor people who can't afford to buy shoes, are the people who speak Jamaican, naturally. The class prejudice is rank.

Similarly, Morris Cargill, once The Gleaner's prize columnist, got away with all kinds of 'facetyness' under the guise of satire. He used regularly to 'badtalk' the Jamaican language as a 'corruption' of English. So now the barefoot people are covered with sores. They take other people's 'good-good' language and obeah it, turning it into something diseased. Incidentally, some mischiefmakers have observed that I've 'taken over' Morris Cargill's space on the opinion page. Poor Cargill must be rolling in his grave.

SERIOUS BUSINESS

One of the functions I'd like to see the Jamaican language assume is that of a prime medium for reporting national and international news. The usual argument against taking the language seriously is that there's no standard writing system. But this is not true.

Five years after Jamaica became a supposedly 'independent' country, the linguists Frederic Cassidy (Jamaican) and Robert LePage (British) published the Dictionary of Jamaican English. Cassidy developed a system for writing the Jamaican language and gave a lucid explanation of it in the dictionary. His system has been slightly modified by the Jamaican Language unit at the University of the West Indies, Mona, headed by Professor Hubert Devonish.

The Cassidy writing system has not been widely used in Jamaica largely because it has not been taught in school. The singular exception is the bilingual education pilot project initiated by the Jamaican Language Unit. The unit has just produced a book with a bilingual title: Writing Jamaican the Jamaican Way and Ou Fi Rait Jamiekan. It includes a CD that facilitates learning: you can hear the sounds represented by the written symbols.

The system is really quite easy. The symbols always represent the same sounds. Without exception. Unlike English. In the Jamaican system, 36 symbols are used: 12 for vowels and double vowels; 24 for consonants. The sound of most of the consonants is the same as in English: b, d, f, g, h, j, k, I, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, w, y, z. In addition, there are some double consonants: ch as in 'chat'; gy as in 'gyal'; ky as in 'kyap'; ng as in 'ring'; ny as in 'nyuu'; sh as in 'dish'.

The vowels are bit more complicated. Don't be confused by the spelling of the English words; it's the pronunciation that matters.

Vowels:

ii iit (eat)

I it (it)

ie rien (rain)

e pen (pen)

a hat (hat)

aa haat (heart)

ai hait (height)

o hot (hot)

ou hous (house)

u put (put)

uo duor (door)

uu yuut (youth)

Try reading the sentences below. You'll probably have to read aloud at first.

After you get the hang of it, you'll be able to read silently - as you've been taught to do with English:

A lang taim nou wi fi tek fi wi uona langgwij siiryos. Wi kyaan dis a gwaan so, a dis wi kolcha. Fi riil. It don gaan to di worl, an wi a gwaan laik se it no gat no valyu.

Carolyn Cooper is professor of literary and cultural studies at the University of the West Indies, Mona. Send feedback to: karokupa@gmail.com or columns@gleanerjm.com.