One’s culture! One’s identity!
By Mutryce A. Williams
When I moved to the Falls I embraced the ‘non-islandism,’ one Caribbean mentality that was being indoctrinated by the Caribbean Student Organization. Don’t get me wrong, I learnt that even though we may have our differences, as a region, we have a lot more in common than we actually think. Whilst doing this however I realized that I was also losing pieces of me. I had become a melting pot of various things, and for someone who had never set foot in Grenada or St. Lucia I could give you plenty details about the Carenage, St. David’s, St. Patrick’s, Gros Islet, Dennery and Castries. I could give you the Grenadian Revolution play for play and instead of going ‘around the bend’, I would be going ‘aroung the bend’. Somebody was always, ‘kicksing’. There were the injections of the ‘Oui,’ and ‘Garcon’. And to add insult to injury, a little bit of Texan got filtered in, because there were times, I would be ‘fixin’ to do something or go somewhere. My accent and language had become so coloured that there was hardly an essence of the ‘Kitti-St. Paulian’ to be found in me and although I knew and shared my history just as my friends shared theirs, I was out numbered and eventually without truly realizing it at the time I assimilated into a mix these varied and rich cultures.
I decided that I had to redefine myself, define me for me, however try with all my mite not to lose that rich ‘Kitti-St. Paulianess’ that was indoctrinated in me and I when I returned home I decided to re-cultivate it. A few years later I found myself at a cross road when I migrated and not only reunited with my circle of friends, but also added a new dimension of African friends to the melee. By the end of my stint in Irving I could give you both sides of the Mugabe argument, had attended several brie’s, and knew the ‘Zim’ and Nigerian culture inside out, and again the vocabulary had become tainted. These were great experiences and I have many great and lasting friendships as a result, but they have also left me with a longing to hold on to what is true, that need to not lose my culture, that need to not lose my heritage, that need to bottle the uniqueness of my upbringing and carry it with me wherever I go and never let it get drowned out by anyone or anything. There was that need to hold on to my language, although some may consider my native dialect to be ‘backward’.
I can recall the negative comments about the way in which people who hailed from my side of the island spoke. I was always asked, “Why do country people speak so badly?” Other questions fielded were, “You not shame to tell people where you from?” Then there were the comments, “I could see why your mother send you school in town, so that you could be between people who speak proper English and not adopt that backward talk.” Little did they know that my mother, who was born, raised, educated and taught in St. Paul’s spoke perfect, or should I say immaculate English! I have had people remark, “Why, for somebody who is from that part of the island, she speaks good English,” as if this was some sort of anomaly. I have even had people ask me if I can understand the ‘dialect’ as they defined it…to which I have politely smiled and replied, “I don’t speak like this all the time, I only talk this way so that you can understand me.” Some people find my response a bit cheeky but it is the truth. I had a friend remark once, “You stay there think you know her, the second she jump off that bus, you would think is a different person that there, you would be surprised that you can’t understand one word that she says. I don’t know why she doesn’t throw way that backward talk, because it doesn’t sound good.” To this and all of the other comments, I simply smile.
There is and has been the belief that people who speak dialect are unrefined and uneducated. Over the years society has been telling us that this is the practice of the ignorant. We have been told that it makes us sound ‘backward’. This has caused many of us to try our best to remove every hint of dialect from our lexis. I say that there is perfectly nothing wrong with speaking dialect, one just ought to be able to switch, as there is a time and place for everything. I often explain that while the English language has so many exquisite words, there are some words and expressions that are more expressive when said in my native dialect. One can’t help but wonder whether the following expressions would have the same impact if they were said in Standard English. The expressions are “stone moderation dress, donkey aint got no call in horse race, a going go buss a lime, you like pung story eh, me mouth no join church, boy you no easy, monkey know which limb to jump pon, day run till night catch it, time longer than twine, you eye to long, me no going cut me nose to spoil me face, take little and live long, you a take from Peter to pay Paul, me rest she a the foot of the cross, a one warbeing that there, well wait you pull de devil tail no, dress over, no jam me up, take you mouth off a me pickney, learn to cut you eye, all you look me sin and trouble ya now, me arm peets, look me wuk ya, wha eye no see heart no grieve, you only see fowl bottom when wind blow, Parson christen he pickney first?”
A few days ago, while reminiscing on old times with some friends, one of them was recounting what he referred to as a ‘sweet, sweet’ argument that he had witnessed while growing up in the village. In this argument two women were giving each other “some hard, hard word!” He ended by saying, “Boy, you know everything mash up, when Jane tell Sue, HA.” There was a state of shock or disbelief among us. But we knew that with the utterance of that two-letter word Jane had won the argument. You see each village, area or country have a dialect that is unique to it, and in this era instead of hoping that the practice of speaking in one’s colloquial tongue dissipates, maybe we ought to research the origin of these unique coinages. I for one would like to know how that two letter word, a word that is known throughout the English world to be associated with merriment or laughter, is a term of endearment, the worst form of ‘bad word’ even in the village of St. Paul’s where I grew up. A child may avoid punishment for sucking his or her teeth, but if he or she utters that two letter word, he or she would surely be severely reprimanded. I have seen many of my playmates receive a ‘proper washing out’ for using that word. If one was loitering and a sibling brought the message that mother requested his or her presence at home immediately and this request was being ignored, as one was having a great deal of fun, all the messenger would have to say to get a quick response is, “A going go tell Ma you say HA!” “A could tell you, everything done one time!” The child would sprint home as fast as he or she could before that sibling got there, because Ma would not want to know whether it was true or not, “the licks would start one time”.
Over the years I have had people comment on the use of dialect or colloquial expressions in some of my articles. I have heard, “You writing in the papers, you can’t put some things a little better or put it in the proper English, is not like you don’t know any better.” My response normally is, “But this is how I speak, this is how the majority of the people I know speak, I am not writing an academic or a scholarly piece which is to be graded, I am just writing what’s on my mind.” We ought to realize that our language, our expressions are what makes us uniquely us. The moment we do away with them in favour of the standardized norm we are not only killing our identity, we are killing our culture.
