THE EDITOR, Sir:ONCE AGAIN, I feel the need to challenge the misinformation emanating from one of your readers about the Jamaican language.
In his letter of February 8, 2002, Mr. John Russell stated that Patois is part of our heritage but that "its genesis is from our dark backward era when our ancestors were illiterate and unread. As a result, they were unable to properly pronounce all but the most basic of English words."
I guess like so many, Mr Russell has a special pick for Patois. Can he name one human language that did not evolve in a manner similar to Patois?
If we follow his logic, we should now speak of English as having its genesis in the dark backward era when the ancestors of the English were illiterate and unread and could not properly speak Norman French. Or of the French, the Spanish, the Portuguese, the Italian, the Romanian, we might say: their languages emerged because their ancestors were unable to properly pronounce all but the most basic of Latin words.
How is that for linguistic revisionism and romanticising about the inadequacy of the ancestors of those who today claim ownership of some of the world's respectable and/or dominant languages?
If the English had killed the Patois that evolved into the global language Mr. Russell is defending today, we would not be having this discussion. I thought that that was information that a man like Mr Russell, who is not "illiterate and unread", would have known.
For his ancestors' ignorance, at least there was the excuse of illiteracy. What's the excuse for his?
I am etc.,
R. ANTHONY LEWIS
roanthony@yahoo.com
University of Montreal
Quebec, Canada
Via Go-Jamaica
