Patois is geographically limited

THE EDITOR, Sir:

PLEASE PUBLISH as a letter to Carolyn Cooper.

Dear Carolyn: Re your August 8, 2010, article 'Reading and writhing':

Most Jamaicans are not as concerned with the legitimacy of Jamaican as they are with its viability in the "flat world" in which we live. Can our present students become the assertive, effective arbitrators and wielders of power as they represent our country among the other world leaders with whom they must interact?

It is interesting how vehemently you speak for the rights of the Jamaican student to speak his or her language even as you wield with great facility and ease the words of the English language to cut down contemptuously those who would challenge you. Do you not recognise that that facility is exactly what the defenders of English crave for their children?

Geographical limitations

Whereas I share the love for the rhythm and nuances that come across in Patois, I am not blinded by this love to ignore its geographical limitations. There is research-based evidence that a student who is not reading at grade level by the fourth grade is usually at risk of future failure. Such academic deficiency is usually accompanied by student frustration with school and academics and places the student in the high possibility of becoming a high school drop-out.

This is the reality that your opponents fear - it is not the absence of a love for the language, or an embarrassment at its use in the public arena. It is that individuals become less than able to wheel and deal with the heavy-hitters on the international scene and so may inadvertently give away our birthright because of deficiencies of interpretation and articulation on the more arcane levels of interaction. I must add this is a problem which would not be yours as evidenced by your superb facility and comfort in the management and manipulation of the language.

Striking the balance

So, as a hesitant interloper into what seems to be an ongoing debate, I ask the question: How do you, without ignoring the place of Jamaican, ensure that the English language receives the salience that it needs to assure continued viability of our present and future international representatives?

Even as you respond to my letter, parsing and extracting the presence or absence of logical argument, would you pause to use your obvious academic prowess in more in-depth cogitation on how we can answer this question?

It is not undeserving of our time, since the answer to this question does have an impact on national security and prosperity.

I am, etc.,

JOSEPHINE ROBERTSON

(Visiting Jamaican)

josephine_robertson@yahoo.com