Teaching English as a second language Pt II

October 26, 2003
by Dr Winford James

The Creole that Jamaicans and other West Indians speak is as much human language as (Standard) English, the ignorance of many on this matter notwithstanding. Human language is a complex phenomenon that, among other things, is a system of sounds organised for the expression of meaning or message in social contexts. The organisation is made up of different levels and, potentially, is limitlessly variable. There is a level for organisation of pronunciation, a second for organisation of syllables without meanings, a third for vocabulary with different kinds of meanings, a fourth for phrases, clauses, and sentences, a fifth for discourse or connected sentences, and so on. On the surface, this kind of organisation manifests itself differently in particular languages (Chinese, Russian, English, Spanish, French, Creole) but, underlyingly, that is, at its roots, it is essentially the same.

In brief, Creole and English are different languages on the surface, but they derive from the same underlying organising principles.

But most people hear and see only the variable surface, not the subsurface, and they allow social factors to distort their judgments about that surface and do injustice to even what ought to be their commonsense. In the case of Creole and English, they allow the prestige that British imperialism (including the components of social discrimination and racist formal education) has conferred on English and the stigma that it has imposed on Creole to distort their judgments of the two languages. So, even today, over a century and a half removed from the act of emancipation and more than that time of Creole speech, most people, many of them speakers of the very thing, still see Creole not only as a sadly broken version of English, but, incredibly, as a morally bad and improper version as well.

If they were to stop and reflect in a way that they have never done before, they would go back to the genesis of language (What was the first language? How was it organised?) and wonder about the multiplicity of languages since (How did Chinese, Latin, French, English come about?) and, specifically, about the coming into being of Creole languages. They would wonder whether the first language (whatever it was) was creolised into new languages. They would wonder how English came about - whether it was formed and developed in response to conditions similar to those for Creole. And they would be bound to realise that English was not the first language, that it emerged from the social contact of speakers of different earlier languages (importantly, Germanic languages, Latin, and Norman French), and it too, just like Creole now, was regarded as a corrupt version of a language its innovating speakers encountered in their social movements and had to live and contend with.

Just as English must have started as a contact language, so did Creole. The latter emerged out of the contact of West African and British speakers in conditions of slavery. The contact required the West Africans to divest themselves of their African languages (especially the vocabulary) and create a new language out of 1) the vocabulary of non-Standard British Englishes, 2) the pronunciation and grammar of their African languages, and 3) language principles innate in the human brain.

The language that emerged, Creole, is not the product of a failed attempt at learning Standard English, just as English is not the product of a failed attempt at learning Germanic, Latin, or French. It is the product of a restructuring of West African languages and British Englishes in a social context which was so configured that there was a need to acquire and develop new speech.

Restructuring, not an attempt at perfect learning of some target language, is at the heart of the acquisition / development process in such contexts. It leads to the creation of a new language, and that language stabilises (that is, develops various linguistic norms or characteristics) as the social group that created it stabilises (that is, develops social norms or characteristics). Creole has stabilised over time as the social groups that speak it have stabilised over time. Stabilised speech is correct (that is, grammatical) speech.

The Jamaican Creole data in Yusuff Ali's article is grammatical speech, having been around and met communication needs for over two centuries. I reproduce the data below:

¤ September eleben two tousand and tree.
¤ The barl inna de bax.
¤ De phone a ring.
The sentences are an inconsistent attempt to represent Creole in the Roman alphabet as it is applied to English, and I have underlined the obviously Creole parts. The restructurings that have become norms in Creole are as follows:

¤ Pronouncing 'v' as 'b' when it comes between vowels. ¤ Pronouncing 'th' as 't' or 'd' at the beginning of the relevant words.
¤ Pronouncing the short 'o' sound in words such as 'box' as a short 'a' sound.
¤ Pronouncing the long 'o' sound in words such as 'ball' as a long 'a' sound.
¤ Locating subjects without a verb in the structure subject + preposition + place.
¤ Expressing the notion of ongoing action by 'a' + verb rather than by parts of 'be' + verb + -ing.

These restructurings have become norms in the speech of West Indians and are therefore correct or grammatical in the language we call Creole. They are used uniformly by speakers. There is nothing wrong with them in any sense. And, critically, they express messages felicitously.

Pt I | Pt II | Pt III

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