"Nation language" is the term coined by scholar and poet
Kamau Brathwaite[ McArthur, Tom,]
"Nation language"
''Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language'', 1998. and now commonly preferred to describe the work of writers from the
Caribbean and the
African diaspora in non-standard
English, as opposed to the traditional designation of it as "
dialect
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a ...
", which Brathwaite considered carries pejorative connotations that are inappropriate and limiting.
In the words of Kamau Brathwaite, who is considered the authority of note on nation language and a key exemplar of its use:
We in the Caribbean have a ..kind of plurality: we have English, which is the imposed language on much of the archipelago. It is an imperial language, as are French, Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
and Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
. We also have what we call creole English, which is a mixture of English and an adaptation that English took in the new environment of the Caribbean when it became mixed with the other imported languages. We have also what is called nation language, which is the kind of English spoken by the people who were brought to the Caribbean, not the official English now, but the language of slaves and labourers, the servants who were brought in.[Brathwaite, Edward Kamau, ''History of the Voice: The Development of Nation Language in Anglophone Caribbean Poetry'' (]New Beacon Books
New Beacon Books is a British publishing house, bookshop, and international book service that specializes in Black British, Caribbean, African, African-American and Asian literature. Founded in 1966 by John La Rose and Sarah White, it was the ...
, 1984, ), pp. 5–6.
Writers who also notably use nation language include
,
Louise Bennett
Louise Simone Bennett-Coverley or Miss Lou (7 September 1919 – 26 July 2006), was a Jamaican poet, folklorist, writer, and educator. Writing and performing her poems in Jamaican Patois or Creole, Bennett worked to preserve the practice of p ...
,
John Figueroa,
Archie Markham,
Linton Kwesi Johnson
Linton Kwesi Johnson (born 24 August 1952), also known as LKJ, is a Jamaica-born, British-based dub poet and activist. In 2002 he became the second living poet, and the only black one, to be published in the Penguin Modern Classics series. His p ...
,
Marc Matthews,
John Agard
John Agard FRSL (born 21 June 1949 in British Guiana) is an Afro-Guyanese playwright, poet and children's writer, now living in Britain. In 2012, he was selected for the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. ,
Jean Binta Breeze
Jean may refer to:
People
* Jean (female given name)
* Jean (male given name)
* Jean (surname)
Fictional characters
* Jean Grey, a Marvel Comics character
* Jean Valjean, fictional character in novel ''Les Misérables'' and its adaptations
* Jea ...
, as well as others of a younger generation. Poet and scholar
Mervyn Morris ("one of the first academics to espouse the importance of nation language in helping to define in verse important aspects of Jamaican culture", according to
Ralph Thompson) identifies
V. S. Reid's 1949 novel ''
New Day'' as the first literary work to use
Jamaican vernacular as the language of narration.
In his ''History of the Voice'' (1984), Brathwaite discusses the prominence of pentameter in English poetic tradition, claiming that since the time of
Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for '' The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He w ...
, and with a few notable exceptions, pentameter has been the prevailing rhythm of English poetry. Brathwaite suggests that such imported literary forms may not be suitable to express the Caribbean experience. He writes, "The hurricane does not roar in pentameters." It is here that nation language becomes of use to the Caribbean poet:
Brathwaite describes reading an article by the
Martinician poet and critic
Édouard Glissant, in which Glissant describes nation language as a "forced poetics" because it was used strategically by slaves in order to both disguise and maintain their culture.
See also
*
Jamaican patois
Jamaican Patois (; locally rendered Patwah and called Jamaican Creole by linguists) is an English-based creole language with West African influences, spoken primarily in Jamaica and among the Jamaican diaspora. A majority of the non-English ...
*
Creole language
A creole language, or simply creole, is a stable natural language that develops from the simplifying and mixing of different languages into a new one within a fairly brief period of time: often, a pidgin evolved into a full-fledged language. ...
*
Guyanese Creole
Guyanese English Creole (''Creolese'' by its speakers or simply Guyanese) is an English-based creole language spoken by the Guyanese people. Linguistically, it is similar to other English dialects of the Caribbean region, based on 19th-century ...
*
Spanglish
Spanglish (a portmanteau of the words "Spanish" and "English") is any language variety (such as a contact dialect, hybrid language, pidgin, or creole language) that results from conversationally combining Spanish and English. The term is mos ...
*
Trinidadian and Tobagonian English
Trinidadian and Tobagonian English (TE) or Trinidadian and Tobagonian Standard English is a dialect of English used in Trinidad and Tobago. TE co-exists with both non-standard varieties of English as well as other dialects, namely Trinidadian ...
References
External links
"Nation Language" LiteratureAlive Online.
*
* Brandon Brown
African Postcolonial Literature in English in the Postcolonial Web, 1997.
English-based pidgins and creoles
Sociolinguistics
Diglossia
Languages of the African diaspora
{{sociolinguistics-stub