The Patois dilemma

THE EDITOR, Madam:

I came across a clip on Instagram of a woman trying, with great difficulty, to read a United States Department of Agriculture form translated into Jamaican Creole. The difficulty arose not because the lexicon did not mirror Jamaican Patois as spoken, but because of its orthography, using the Cassidy-LePage format. In trying to decipher it myself, it dawned upon me that I, a medical professional, am illiterate, not in English, or Spanish, in which I interact daily, but the native language, Jamaican Patois.

A glance at the comments revealed that other Jamaicans had realised the same ugly truth. While we love and celebrate Patois, our grasp of the written language linking Jamaicans, our descendants, and Central American cousins together in its official’ form is quite limited.

I say ‘official’ because, before the 2012 Jamiekan Nyuu Testiment, the experience of many Jamaicans with written Patois was an eclectic mix of stylized versions of Creole and standard English, which required little to no mental effort to decipher. However, those outside of linguistic academia had our first introduction to the 1961 Cassidy-LePage system and realized that in this linguistic system, the spelling of words once left to personal interpretation had a different, yet official standard. Therefore, Jesus was spelt ‘Jiizas’, pickney was ‘pikni’, bite was ‘bait’ and tink was now... ‘tingk’?

The Cassidy-LePage system features phonetics that differ significantly from standard English. These differences create difficulty, because many Jamaicans tend to read and write Patois based on standard English rules. There are those who haven’t heard of the Cassidy-LePage system. The question is, how practical is using the Cassidy-LePage system in official documents?

If Patois is to be an official language, the government, educational institutions, and the media must actively educate and promote it in Cassidy-LePage form, given its use for official internal and external attempts at translation. This first step will aid in the removal of the stigma of Patois, especially among the Jamaican elite. If not done, the debate on the validity of Patois as an official language, as well as contention about the real-world utility of the Cassidy-LePage system will continue to persist.

Other Caribbean countries have done it, one example is Papiamento in verbal and written form – eclipsing Dutch – in the ABC islands, even among their upper class! But when Jamaica still has an English literacy rate of 88 per cent, lauding the virtues of another language system that has not been taught, therefore not easily read and, in some cases, even ridiculed by the very demographic it is supposed to help, seems out of touch at best, and impractical at worst.

When we are ready to promote standardised written Patois, increasing its literacy and ensuring that written and verbal formats align, there will be greater support to have it as our official language. Until then, let’s not place the cart before the horse.

OLIVIA VALENTINE