Tony Hendriks, Contrbutor
IN THIS business of words, language is everything; being Jamaican we have two. (Or depennin an wij wan unuh yoos we as too a we owna langwij).
Therein lies a debate on how to formalise our unique language and whether of course it is one.
Jamaica is the largest island in the English-speaking Carib-bean, we have taken the mother tongue, sucked it between our teeth, pared it to the bare minimum, infected it with humour and spat it back at the world as a unique brand of intercourse. Now alongside reggae music, Ras Tafari and Yardie-style-killings, patois is a universal symbol of Jamaica. Everywhere other than Jamaica that is.
But is recognising that we are bilingual and that patois is a first language of many Jamaicans, enough? Should we not name our indigenous tongue more than patois, after all patois is French for "Pidgin English" and we are far more exotic, like parakeets, better we call it simply: Jamaican.
Unfortunately many, old-time, upwardly mobile, middle class Jamaicans and nouveau Christians believe our dialect typifies the essence of what they want to rid themselves of as a reminder of Africa and slavery.
Very often the mind that refuses to accept patois as an essential tool to help fellow Jamaicans into the light and out of the dark ages from whence they came is the same that refuses to acknowledge the existence of the language and would love to ban the use of words like rahtid (raatid depending on your spelling) from the airwaves.
But how can you be offended by something that doesn't exist? If it doesn't exist it must be gibberish and you can't legislate against gibberish or Parliament would fall silent, radio be restricted to music only, pulpits made a mockery of and traitorous verandas and revolutionary rum bars boarded up.
Middle Passage
To many of us Jamaican is as important as Nanny, Bogle, Sharpe, Marley and one National Hero who spoke better English than most Britons today, Marcus Garvey. Someone once said, "Patois fills the gap left by the Middle Passage!" and as Jamaica defines itself in this millennium the fact we use music, dance, art, theatre and religious philosophy to open our hearts and challenge the conventional wisdom, means we should be proud of our Jamaican raw soul.
Frankly the biggest quarrel in formalising Jamaican will fall among writers who all have our own version of spelling. Never mind the incessant cussing we give Microsoft Word every time it corrects 'seh' to 'she' until finally deciding to type 'say' instead, (which possibly makes more sense), we will have to learn someone else's version of what we have always written just as we feel. Seen? Zeen!
Britain gives grants to teach illiterate immigrants English using the language of their nation. Now alongside Urdu, Hindi and Farsi illiterate Jamaicans in the UK are taught to read English by using patois. If foreigners recognise that we have more than one language surely it's time we did so ourselves?
English is constantly changed and updated. It too was once a mere dialectic mishmash of German, French, Latin and Celtic. Jamaican is English, Spanish, Hindi all licked together with the tribal tongues of African slaves and still better to curse in than the Anglo Saxon the English have taken so long to cultivate.
An Irish friend of mine once explained to his helper that although he could understand most of what was said in Jamaica as his Cork accent was similar in cadence, a couple of words still escaped him, "smaddy" and "unuh".
His helper was only too eager to help and proceeded, with great flourish, to explain exactly what a "smaddy" was, who qualified, who didn't, and whether or not you could still be one if you didn't go to church on Sunday. Only half satisfied, my Irish friend asked, "But what does 'unuh' mean?" to which his helper replied, "That's easy, unuh is a lot of smaddies."
Jamaica always has to answer to the rest of the world for everything we do but the Caribbean nations are unique. Nowhere else in the world was invaded by colonists, the indigenous populations wiped out, then the colonial masters having washed their hands, left the land with scant promises of help for the people, who never asked to be there in the first place, but who inherited the islands. So we can make our own rules and talk how we like. To paraphrase P.J. Patterson "The language is not a shackle!" A so we fi talk! Awhoa!
Tony Hendriks can be reread at www.JamaicanPale-face.com or e-mailed and roundly chastised via Jamai-canPaleface@aol.com.
