Elevation of Jamaican Creole

About this poem

For more than sixty years of my life, I’ve been a fervent advocate for the recognition of Jamaican Creole (JMC), commonly known colloquially as “Patois (Patwa) as the native and official language of Jamaica , alongside the British Crown language of English. While employed as a bilingual Program Specialist at the New York City Division if Bilingual Education, of New York’s Board of Education, I argued strongly for this effort to be accomplished, and received positive support from the Office of Bilingual Education of New York State’s Department of Education. Joining me in collaborative effort during the 1980’s and throughout were linguistic professors from Jamaica’s University of the West Indies. Due unfortunately to unforeseen political obstacles, this effort did not immediately bear fruition. However, the seeds were sewn and the rationale provided for the eventual implementation of this effort; all arising at the time when Haitian Creole , as a sister Caribbean creole language was declared as an official and native language of Haiti, along with French. Languages are invariably named after their countries of origin and of the native residents who give them birth. As prime examples: English (England); French (France); Spanish (Spain); Portuguese (Portugal); Italian (Italy); German (Germany); Chinese (China); Japanese (Japan); Korean (Korea); Burmese (Burma); Pilipino (Philippines). Exceptions to this general rule often display historical evidence of colonialism, hegemonic ruling and, in some extreme cases, even slavery. The United States of America and Canada are classical examples of a past history of colonialism (British, in the case of America, and both British and French, in the case of Canada), resulting in their national languages preserving and perpetuating their colonial legacies. While Creole languages emerged out of forms of slavery, they have retained a unique and novel identity which reveals the resilience of an enslaved people to overcome adversity and create their own unique languages, described opprobriously as Patois or Patwa (i.e.,“broken languages”) by colonial powers, but recognized and elevated in time as autonomous natural languages with their own grammars, syntax, and semantic rules that give them authority to be named after their countries of origin and the indigenous peoples who occupy their native independent states. Such is the case now with Jamaica, on the eve of declaring itself a republic by popular referendum voting, and with a fervent desire to fully embrace its own identity as realized in and through its own native language, Jamaican. As a people’s native language is elevated, so are its native speakers elevated internationally to claim and to articulately assert their linguistic, cultural, social, and historical legacies. This is certainly the case with the Caribbean island of Jamaica, once a prize crown colony of Great Britain that received its independence as a commonwealth nation in 1962, and is now on the verge of becoming a republic, with its native language of Jamaica Creole (or simply, Jamaican) elevated alongside with English, as an important and essential ingredient of that new identity. Jamaica has long been recognized as a nation where English is and remains an official language, but that acknowledgment has been made at a costly price with the failure to assert its native and national Creole language as indubitably the indigenous natural, native, linguistic, and cultural resource of its people, a reality that needs to be given official status by government decree, with the full recognition that Jamaica has long been a bilingual nation. The time is ripe. The time is now. more »