Majority favour patois as an official language of Ja

[wolmersboy]

Re: Majority favour patois as an official language of Ja

Nice post! I will have to disagree with one of your basic arguments--that Jamaicans don't understand English very well. I just can't buy that. Too many of our people have left Jamaica and excelled in America, England and Canada. They sure don't speak or write anything in patois in those countries! So how do Jamaicans who alledgedly have inferior English skills survive and excel in these countries? Obviously, they must have a strong grasp of the language spoken in those countries--which is English.

Again, patois is valuable and a beautiful thing to hear--especially when you don't live in Jamaica! There is nothing wrong with teachers speaking in patois or having books written in patois used in school. I think it is a huge mistake though, to assume that our kids CANNOT learn English while speaking patois. Whatever you may think of world politics, English is the current international language. Do we handicap our kids by clearly sending the signal that they do not have to learn English or do we continue to send out well-prepared students who can switch from patois to standard English faster than you can say "Rahtid!!!"????

Big up and One Love to Massive!!! [img]/forums/images/graemlins/70409-waytogo.gif[/img]

[Q3210]

Re: Majority favour patois as an official language of Ja

From English language as used in instruction could one write or say in patois, "The square of a hypoteneuse in a right angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of its opposite sides?"

And further add to that other scientific information that may occurr in a laboratory or classrom.

Patois is expression of the common man, patois is not developed and known fully by any set standard and therefore insufficient in intellectual circumstances.

[barosa]

Re: Majority favour patois as an official language of Ja

Woolmasbwoy (in the spirit of patwa), [img]/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] Your views are in keeping with those of us who know that "patwa" is limited in its scope. As Q3210 in his post below illustrated, patwa can't be used to replace scientific, mathematical and technological terms and expressions adequately. Wi no have no home grown equivalents and besides, there is no better language than Standard English for such things. The best we can ever hope for, is to do is what we have always done, and that is "Jamaicanize" whatever English words we may stumble on in the process of expressing a mathematical formula or anything of a scientific/technological nature. Until dem decide fi invent new wuds to flesh out de patwa vocabulary wi haffi still use di English language in those areas. I suspect that when the day is upon us when the patwa language is sufficiently broad enough to be used in such cases, the words will be the broken and truncated forms of the existing words. As an example, I can see them spelling [i]pythagarus[/] as "pitagrus" and hypotenuse as "hipatinus" and calling them "Jamaican". [img]/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

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We shall see but a little way if we require to understand what we see : Henry David Thoreau

[Andronian]

Re: Majority favour patois as an official language of Ja

Jamaicans have varying degrees of competence in english. Some Jamaicans have excellent command and others don't. I don't remember saying all Jamaicans don't understand english. The American and British school systems are predjudiced in favor of those who have good command. That is to be expected. Americans even spell some words their own way. Sadly, the Jamaican educational system is predjudiced in favor of those same ones though english is not the language natively acquired by much of the population.

The insistence that patwa cannot express certain things is ridiculous...ha..ha. A language can express anything its speakers wish to say in it. A word is either coined (eg bakativ for support) formed from a compound (eg. an-migl for palm) undergoes a change in meaning (eg holster for a child who carries weapons for adults) or borrowed directly. English has borrowed a plethora of words. 'Hypotenuse' has Greek origins and 'triangle' is from old French. 'Square' is also ultimately derived from old french which, in turn, obtained it from Vulgar Latin. Even words we use commonly like 'theatre', 'arrive' or 'commence' come ultimately from French, although the pronunciations are not the same. Who knows maybe we're really speaking broken French...lol.

[ QUOTE ]

English: a barbarous combination of Germanic, French, Latin and Greek words grafted onto British skin and comprising, in fact, a patois! ;-)


[/ QUOTE ]

As I said before, the man who produced the first translation of the Bible in early modern english was burnt alive at the behest of the English king and the Anglican church. To complete his translation he had coined words such as 'passover' and 'atonement' (from at+one+ment). Therefore, at one time english was not considered to be a language capable of expressing academic or holy thought even by english people! French ruled at the time though it was once subordnidate to Latin. English emerged from the tussle as a global language (thanks to the English navy) with a bunch of French origin words in tow. Ideas about the innate inferiority of certain languages is all in the head and can be dangerous.

Also useless is the notion that language is something static that doesn't change. This site [ http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/ba...noster-oe.html ] has the Lord's Prayer in Old English with audio. It's like a foreign language to our ears.

In any event, I need to make it clear that most people are not advocating the removal of standard english from the Jamaican school system. Once again:

NOBADI NAAH SE INGLISH NO FI TIICH AN YUUZ INA SKUUL!

The discomfort at the notion that patois should even be mentioned at school is indicative of some deep seated and thoroughly inculcated predjudices. What needs to go is the notion that patwa is something evil that needs to be destroyed and uprooted from the student's consciousness before english can be acquired. No other language is taught by destroying the language one already speaks. It's foolishness, and the observed results aren't a credit to this method.

Anyway, I think I'm done. I was done a few pages back. Trying to change some Jamaicans' attitudes towards the language they might have been beaten for speaking is like trying to tell an athesist there is a God. Such useless and inhibiting self-deprecation is something we'll be gradually freed from with the passing of generations. It can't be rushed, but I see the way the wind is blowing and I'm fine with that.

[Andronian]

Re: Majority favour patois as an official language of Ja

Lawks, mi did se mi a go dun taak...

but intelligent educators writing letters to the observer have to stop making sense or else I won't be able to resist posting it here.

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/columns/h...AL_SOCIETY_.asp

[ QUOTE ]


Prejudice in a bilingual society




One of the unfortunate myths that predominate in our school system is that children who do not readily master the skills of reading and writing of English are intellectually backward (not bright) and thus belong to the "lower streams" of the academic system.




These students are seen as people whom "we cannot take very far", and, in so far as school life determines the future of our young people, may be prepared for a life of underachievement. Streaming within the school system runs roughly parallel to streaming among schools, where the traditional high schools predominate in academics, and the new high schools predominate in technical/vocational curricula.




Tech/voc curricula are designed as a concession to those students who, it is thought, may be skilled in 'other areas', but are not expected to participate and excel in those traditional areas of school life that prepare them for the pivotal roles in society which 'bright' people hold.



For us to begin to deconstruct this myth, we need to see that, while literacy is not synonymous with intellectual capacity, it aids intellectual development. Secondly, it does not take much of an intellect to see that learning to read and write is initially learning to manipulate the sounds of one's language and mapping them to symbols representing those sounds.



It will therefore not be difficult to understand that children whose dominant mode of communication is an unwritten vernacular may have the same intellectual potential as literate (English speaking) children, yet not be allowed to develop that potential if their vernacular is not given scope for literacy.




In today's Jamaica, literacy is still the tremulously guarded domain of English even though it is now old hat that Jamaica has two major languages, Jamaican being the more popular and widely spoken. Writing Jamaican is still exclusively the business of singers, poets, playwrights, novelists, and advertisers who use an arbitrary writing system based on English.




Insofar as literacy aids the cognitive processes then, monolingual or near monolingual Jamaican speakers are not served by the current school curricula to an equal extent as native English speakers or those who acquired English before coming to school, since there is currently no opportunity to develop literacy in Jamaican in school.



For Jamaican dominant speakers, their academic development therefore hinges upon their propensity towards English and the rate at which they can learn it.



Meanwhile, the English-speaking minority, even when it constitutes non-Jamaicans, continues towards social, economic and political dominance because of their apparent intellectual superiority in the educational system.




A study of the streaming process in the non-traditional high schools may reveal that the students in the lower streams are dominant in the Jamaican language and demonstrate levels of English proficiency that classify them as learners of English rather than speakers of English.




Those in the upper streams may demonstrate degrees of English proficiency that allow them to participate in English-based curricula but not necessarily achieve as highly as English speakers exposed to the same curricula.




Secondly, a closer study of the now famous Minott report, in conjunction with a survey of the language competencies of the students in the schools surveyed, may betray administrative and curriculum failure rather than teacher failure, since teachers are asked to carry out curriculum tasks designed from 'above', in English for English speakers.




Thirdly, a simple observation of actual classroom procedures may reveal that many teachers instinctively speak Jamaican with their students as it creates a natural bond between student and teacher, ensuring and reinforcing communication.





The real purpose of bilingual programmes in schools the world over is to provide equity in education. Students who have not yet mastered English are empowered to continue unimpeded along the same path of intellectual development as their English-competent counterparts.



Which bilingual Jamaican scientist can doubt that Einstein's theory of relativity can be explained in Jamaican as well as in English? Why can't our technical drawing students can read Chiek Anta Diop's interesting discussion of the construction of the pyramids, and our Home and Family Management students read about traditions of economics and medicine fluently in Jamaican while they are still learning English?



Anyone who has studied a second or foreign language will know that the more complex the text of the language being learned, the more one has to refer to translations of the texts in one's own language for deeper understanding of the second.




Furthermore, why can't a monolingual Jamaican student with a patent for a new invention or fresh insights about governance have the power to present his theories in Jamaican and then have them translated into English?



As simple as this may seem, long-standing historical prejudices based on colonial attitudes about the inferiority of creoles, (in fact, about the inferiority of the people who speak them), are hard to eradicate so that a clear vision of equity in education can be constructed.





Every language teacher who has worked with near monolingual Jamaican speakers knows that those students are as anxious to learn English, as they are to achieve in the school system.




Nevertheless, the hidden agenda continues to operate in the school system to maintain the unequal status quo in which students who are not English proficient continue to be underserved, not only in the English language classes but also in the entire academic arena.




In a nutshell, the hidden curriculum could be articulated thus: "You students who can communicate well only in Jamaican go and get English somewhere else and then come to school. We, the school authorities will continue to teach EVERYTHING in English. What you catch, you catch. It is not our business to ensure that you understand us. We have no intention of changing our methodologies to suit you.




Jamaican is an inferior language; you are an inferior lot, and you have no business bringing that language here into the school system with you.




Leave it at the gate or we will dump you in the lower streams and you will continue to be the hewers of wood and the drawers of water and serve us the English speakers even when we are foreigners who have learned English using the benefit of our own written languages to attain the highest levels of competence in it!"




Thus efforts being made by persons highly skilled in linguistics and education to develop bilingual school programmes are being crudely attacked by uninformed detractors who bombard the pages of the free press from time to time with doomsday pronouncements about the fate of a country which grounds its children in its native language. Many critics bluster that students understand English quite well, but that they are too lazy to make the effort to use it.




This statement betrays ignorance about the linguistic distance between English and Jamaican, and trivialises the complex processes involved in second language learning. However, while detractors in the "free" press may have a limited audience, we certainly have cause for alarm about the future of our students when such statements come from persons in leadership positions in the educational establishment.




Fortunately, while the critics gnash their teeth in genuine angst at the crumbling of the foundations of bourgeois order and morality, genuine educators throughout the creole diaspora continue the work of creating programmes to reach ALL our children instead of only the English speaking minorities whose supreme discomfort may lie in the fact that they can see the writing on the wall:




The future of Jamaican education is a bilingual future, and children, too long disadvantaged by anachronistic streaming procedures, oppressed by hidden agendas which render their language invisible, with the advantage of soundly developed bilingual programmes, may yet prove to be in all subjects, including English, as intellectually competent, or even superior to, those who are now privileged in the current system.




Charlene Wilkinson is a teacher of Language Arts and English language

[email protected]


[/ QUOTE ]

Excellent article.

[Dr.Dudd]

Re: Majority favour patois as an official language of Ja

Yes just like how they did in the Netherlands Anteles.
They teach papiamento to the population of Bonaire and Curocoa,because they are 90% black,and then teach Dutch and english in Aruba,then they split off Aruba, and make it a seperate more afluent territory,while the other two with the blacks,mostly blacks,have to get a permit to visit Aruba.I know that the wealthier Jamaicans will not want their children to be educated in patois,and the education system will be as aparthied as it has always been.
This is only to blunt the effect of a wider availabillity of high school education.
This introduction of patois is just to create a new division,so that their offspring will conitinue to better educated than the the masses who will be educated in patois.
Devide and keep them down as usual.

Dr.Dudd can't edit so he sent me his correction.

[draino]

Re: Majority favour patois as an official language

hey doc, i know you're usually frustrated by the patwa people but definitely i am interested in hearing you elaborate and elucidate your views. why not check out the group:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/patwa

and we can put the matter to rest through debate in a forum dedicated to the topic?

this is an open invitation to others to go check it out.
all the best for the new year

[Blackstar*]

Re: Majority favour patois as an official language of Ja

Dr D, go back and edit your post man. It look like you hand did shift to one side when you type it.

Tenk yuh. [img]/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/graemlins/70409-waytogo.gif[/img]

[Morpheous]

Re: Majority favour patois as an official language

Hmmm interesting....

Chinese will be the language of the future where international trade and commerce is concrerned. Why? China is tipped to be the next super power in around 10 years time. China also has the fastest and largest growing economy and development - Scary for a communist country.

As for Jamaican patios, many parents used to hit their children if they utter a word of patios saying speak "properly". Some even naive to say "speak the queen's english" Even though everyone recognise patios as the language for Jamaica. It helped with the planning of slave rebellions and came in pretty handy against the colonial enslavers english langauage - Immagine telling Palestinians to speak Jewish.

Worst still many parents and people in Jamaica were even fighting against the goodly reggae music. I heard many parents told my bredren them - "TUN OFF DAT GANJA MUSIC"!! [img]/forums/images/graemlins/704555_dwl.gif[/img]

How the same hypocrits dem who gave Bob Marley a fight gainst him reggae music while promoting foreign pop and colonial pop - all of a sudden a bigup Bob Marley and a listen to him tunes dem afta the man dead. A use the same man dem a fight gainst and sell him name fi tourist dollars. Garvey had the same parasites dem innah him side and after him dead dem quick fi celebrate him existence too. [img]/forums/images/graemlins/704555_dwl.gif[/img]

Jamaican patios should be nationalise and celebrated - can't believe Jamaicans are questioning a language/slang that help made them and their forefothers free from slavery.

Talk about slave mentality - up-town dry-land tourist wanna-be. Mental slavery... Slave on.... Mosh....