There's no 'standard' English
Published:Monday | July 19, 2010 | 12:00 AM
The Editor, Sir:
In Nerissa Braimbridge's article in The Sunday Gleaner of July 18, several points are made in her otherwise well-written article that demonstrate a simultaneous and self-contradictory defence and promotion of the Jamaican patois, and, unfortunately, a level of naivety that perhaps, a broader set of experiences would have avoided.
The first mistaken inference is that at some time in the future, the Jamaican dialect will develop to a point where it will equal the capability of standard English. This conclusion erroneously assumes that English is a dead language or, that it has crossed some sort of 'finish line'. In fact, the development of language anywhere, even what we assume makes up 'standard' English, is not a horse race with a winner and losers, rather, it is a journey to the stars, an attempt to reach what is, in reality, a limitless potential. Standard English, in a sense, is no more 'standard' than the Jamaican patois, unless that means it simply has many more and larger dictiona-ries written to try to contain it.
DIALECT VERSUS STANDARD
Another mistake is assuming that the difference between what most call standard English and Jamaican patois involves a difference in the ability to express cultural subtleties or nuances in communication. Unless we assume there is some sort of magical, unknowable constructs expressed in patois that cannot be expressed in standard English, we seem easily to forget that people with those same cultural experiences are raised in Jamaica everyday, and have been for generations, all the while learning standard English as a way of communicating early in childhood. Is Ms Braimbridge suggesting that such Jamaicans' expe-riences don't count? Or, that their standard English vocabularies are something of a hindrance to their cultural development? Nonsense.
In fact, the only difference that can be of any real significance between a dialect of a language and the fuller form of that same language - that is, the one more inclusive of several dialects - is that one has the ability to express even far more subtle and complex nuances, not the other way around. The fact that it is more developed means that it has already absorbed and learned to express those nuances.
I am, etc.,
ED MCOY