Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Shivana Mohammed
(Mohammed, 2009)
internally the region is far from singular, rather it is a group of islands each a nation unto itself.
Many an individual and government have attempted to create within the region a sense of unity,
the façade of a single nation under the sun. However, after multiple failed attempts this has not
been accomplished.
This paper proposes that the definitions of the region all reflect its fragmentation and that
attempts to piece the puzzle together have all failed due to one overlooked and understated
Mohammed 2
element, at the grassroots level, islanders cannot communicate across their national boundaries.
In his Nobel laureate lecture Derek Walcott captures the sentiment of most Caribbean
intellectuals, of the region he remarks that the everyday acts of belief and culture, recall
“Memory that yearns to join the centre, a limb remembering the body from which it has been
severed, like those bamboo thighs of the god. In other words, the way that the Caribbean is still
looked at, illegitimate, rootless, mongrelized. "No people there", to quote Froude, "in the true
sense of the word". No people. Fragments and echoes of real people, unoriginal and broken.
Historically the Caribbean has been destined for fragmentation, politically, socially and
otherwise. A Pre Colonial West Indies was home to a number of indigenous tribes among which
were the major groups the Tainos and Kalinagos, the Carib-speaking peoples and the Arawak-
speaking peoples. These languages were later subjugated before a European Tongue, or tongues.
This process began with the colonization of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Jamaica and Trinidad by the
Spanish. Though in 1655 Jamaica was seized by the English and remained under its rule for 300
years.
followed by their conquer of St Kitts, Barbados, Nevis, Antigua, Monsterrat, Anguilla, Tortola.
In 1625 however a French Rule permeated the island of St. Kitts followed by Guadeloupe and
Martinique both of whom to this day are French Departments, a political aspect that has had
serious ramifications for their assimilation into the greater Caribbean region. Similarly, the
French took control of one third of Spanish Speaking Hispaniola, creating the French Speaking
Haitian. In addition to the English and French rule the Caribbean islands of Aruba, Bonaire,
Curacao, Tobago, Saint Eustatius, Saba, St. Martin, St. Croix and Tortola, also became Dutch
speaking territories.
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Colonization Policy was one that mandated that the slaves be fragmented to allow for
easier rule. Such that the African imports, were scattered across the multiple territories in no
linguistic order to prevent collusion. Derek Bickerton in discussing the Language Bio
Programme Hypothesis comments that the intelligence of the average slave was undermined
since one’s ability to learn language is seen as proportionate to ones intelligence, rather in
actuality the average slave came out of a region with nearly 2000 languages, where knowledge of
multiple language varieties is commonplace. Bickerton notes that the propensity of the slave to
The acquisition of the language of the Colonizer was no herculean feat. It is thus a
curiosity that with so heavy a substrate influence- genealogically speaking the Caribbean region
should have evolved into a region where, while being multi-lingual, the average islanders
linguistic repertoire ought to include the major languages and varieties. Africa for instance as a
multi-linguistic nation has an average 80 million people who share 400 languages, the typical
Nigerian for instance, his repertoire includes at minimum two to three languages; this they
Furthermore, in a Nation that is considered third world as is the case with the Caribbean
region, the value of a multilingual population to its development has been recognized, that “the
high linguistic diversity of many African countries (Nigeria alone has 250 languages, one of the
greatest concentrations of linguistic diversity in the world) has made language policy a vital issue
in the post-colonial era. In recent years, African countries and many other developing nations
such as Singapore1, have become increasingly aware of the value of their linguistic inheritance.
1
Singapore has four major languages, they are; Tamil, Malay, Mandarin and English.
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Language policies being developed nowadays are mostly aimed at multilingualism. (languages of
Africa, 1)
As a region that has suffered the rape of colonialism, they too understand the pressures
that exist to assume the language of the colonizer where “A monolingual perspective is often
English, French, German, Spanish and other languages are often styled.” ( Edwards 1) This
monolingual perspective that Edwards mentions happens to be the perspective of most islanders,
where there lingua franca is the only language that matters. For within this particular lingua
franca are their social aspirations and cultural norms. To become multi-lingual is often construed
Edwards recognizes this, also, and he states, “the unique well springs of group
consciousness, traditions and beliefs are thus seen as intimately entwined with language. This
idea stemming from the premise that the latin root the word traduttore- to translate, lies in the
even tribalism within the region. These two act as antagonists to individualism and intercourse.
the island territories in the Caribbean] faithful to their own original habits; but while
provincialism makes people sedentary, intercourse obliges them to move about and interact….
[it] spreads language preventing dialectical splintering by wiping out any innovation and
insularity, it also promotes unity by adopting and spreading innovation.” (qtd Edwards 53)
This is seen as one of the current issues in the 21st Century Caribbean, while most persons
opt to travel to the Anglo phone cosmopolitan, few Anglophone Caribbean persons chose
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Rather the OEC has seen this trend, and sought to suggest a solution, in order to increase contact
and the desire to learn another’s language. They decided that there should be a common Eastern
Passport. The distinctions between these two sets of ideologies determine whether or not a
country [Nation] is plurist or majoritarian. In a situation like that which the common OECS
language and its bastard offspring; there is no situation where there exists a second country
standard, or to the extreme a situation of diglossia where both the Standard European language
With the world closing in on the Caribbean, the need for a voice that speaks on behalf of
all Caribbean man is inexorable. Should every islander, be able to speak the tongue of his
neighbor. Can they not rise up in unison even in their divisiveness? Where, their words though
different, share a common agreed thought after sufficient communication. In the face of
globalization and rising global turmoil Caribbean Gatekeepers have overtly voiced the need for
Caribbean Unity.
In August 2008, Trinidadian Prime Minister Patrick Manning re-commenced old but all
too familiar talk’s pro- Caribbean unity; talks which were similar to those launched by former
Barbadian Prime Minister Alexander Bustamante fifty years ago, with the formation of the West
Indian Federation; the first official and structured move toward Caribbean unity. This was the
Eastern Caribbean States, later CARICOM, CARICOM Caribbean Single Market and Economy
Post the 2008 activity, one Robert Buddhan recognizes the inevitable fate of all blocs
whose intent is Caribbean Unity, he states “Caribbean unity is a strategy for survival by making
alliances with each other and with states that are going to be important in the new global order
that is taking shape. If we have been on the wrong side of history we need to get on the right side
of the future...” (Buddhan, 2) to this the Prime Minister of St. Vincent Ralph Gonzales remarked
“CARICOM's single market and economy, if it should come into being at all, will require the political
authority similar to that which the OECS has. Otherwise, the Caribbean Single Market and Economy
“Politically the Caribbean is made up of numerous entities depending not only on present
political status but also on colonial associations. European colonial policy above all else
determined the entities in the Caribbean by creating great distances or close links between the
islands regardless”(Roberts ) This colonial legacy of the Caribbean has resulted in a nation state
German, and Spanish and other languages are often styled” (Edwards 1) It must be noted that the
formation of any political union within the region is often influenced by the delineations created
by the Colonial Superpowers, thus maintaining the linguistic divide that was implemented during
the plantation system, this thus permeating the problem of Caribbean fragmentation. It is
noteworthy to look at the fact that The Federation of the Westindies was composed however of
not solely the anglo-phone Caribbean but include, however the OECS and Caricom by no
coincidence are majorly Anglophone in origin. Thus we keep within the agenda of the colonial
It is acceptable that any move to multilingualism, within any particular territory would
raise eyebrows. To speak another language is to associate oneself in however minute amounts,
with another person’s culture. Cronin looks at this as a challenge that may seem insurmountable
to some. He states that “All attachments and memberships take time. We cannot be members of
an infinite number of groups in the same way, because attachments like these require more than
quality motivation but also quality time; to learn about the people involved their culture and their
ideosyncrasis“(Cronin 47) For the Saussure, the answer to the issue of how people will accept of
any type of linguistic change may be found in the etymology of the word social, he says “ the
etymology of the word social, in Latin, refers to the binding together of whatever it is that makes
a collectivity of individual act in the same way thus, calling language a social fact is connected to
an assertion that every member of the speech community possesses the language in identical
form.”
Should we take social, in a Marxist light, being political in its undertones, “drawing to
mind connotation of social inequity- the inevitable tendency of any social Nation.” (qtd Joseph
99) the regional integration bodies ought to be the ones to address linguistic dis-integration. The
linguistic inequities within the region must first be addressed, not that each individual’s idiolect
become identical but that they assume identical status. In the formulation of integration policies,
regional integration bodies ought to engage status planners, so to put each territories lingua
franca on the same esteem throughout the region. So that French may be used in public fora in
active catholic philanthropy; and beyond any tongue ever used by man; it is of right the
Mohammed 8
cosmopolitan speech” as such the language of choice for most of the meeting and counsels of the
Caribbean integrating bodies occur in English. This seems a myopic and one sided decision, in
that, by opting to use English there is an informal consensus as per what the lingua franca of the
political, economic and social forerunners of the Caribbean will be, effectively excluding a major
portion of the region. And while the argument of some may be that the extra-english territories
are represented at these meetings in English. It raises the question of who are these summits and
counsels directed toward integrating; solely the leaders? If the average Cuban, or Venezuelan
cannot follow the proceedings of a meeting ordained at bringing him closer to his Jamaican
The Caribbean single market and economy raises other valuable issues, it hopes once
enacdted to allow the free movement of skilled labor across the region. The end result of this
may be a failure in two ways; firstly, that the immigrant population of many islands will increase
rapidly and in so doing so will their linguistics composition exponentially change. Leaving
governments with issues of a linguistic nature where they will be forced to come to terms with
their new unofficial multilingualism. In a situation like this where multilingualism arises
“through contact and becomes a necessity [ as is the case in any free trade bloc] it imposes also
the necessity if crossing language barriers. It is obvious in other words that despite widespread
multilingual competence, there arise many occasions when some means of bridging a language
gap is required.” (Edward, 53) There are two main methods which may be applied to the
Caribbean Situation:
superstrate influence.
The Caribbean governments will now be forced to reconsider the use and status of
another islands lingua franca. Asking them question posited my Joseph; what is the status of this
foreign language? Can it function and fulfill all the purposes of my own lingua franca? How is it
classified vis a vis other languages, primarily my own? What other languages are used by its
speakers? Are there any dialects? The responses to these questions simply put initiate
The twenty first Century Caribbean has come to terms with the fact that there is
increasing need for Caribbean Unity, and one key factor in this has to be recognition of the
challenges which may occur should nothing be done by regional integrating bodies to address the
Works Cited
Buddhan, Robert. Caribbean unity an idea whose time has come again.
28-04-2009
Joseph, John E. Language and Identity: National, Ethnic, Religious. Palgrave: United States,
2004.