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by Charlene Wilkinson, University of Guyana
Republished from: Transforming Pedagogy: Practice, Policy, & Resistance (Sargasso 2018-19, I & II)

The uncountable moments that impinge upon a student’s consciousness, confined—even distorted as it can often be in these ex-plantation societies—to the shape of neo-colonial institutions, can indeed serve to energize an iconoclastic transformative impulse. By practicing that both cursed and blessed activity that some have referred to as “the art of memory” (Yates) or “inventing the truth” (Zinsser), we may indeed present an artform that breaks through time barriers with the sole intent of transformation.

Two of my earliest student memories are of my primary and early secondary school days. In the first memory, I am eight years old. I am standing in the school yard. Another student comes up to me and, in a menacing tone, says,

Yuu tingk yu wait, na! Yuu tingk yu wait! Wel, le mi tel yu. Yu een wait jos biikaaz yu doz taak so! Yu iz a Potagii! [Do you really think you’re white? Do you think you’re white? Well, let me tell you. Talking like that doesn’t make you white. You are a Portuguese.]

In the second memory, I am twelve years old. My British cousins are visiting from England and we are all sitting around the dining table after dinner chatting and laughing about everything and nothing when my otherwise gentle and loving Creole-speaking mother suddenly says to our cousins in her best English and in a deeply apologetic tone, “My children don’t speak as well as you, you know!”

There is a momentary silence at the table, but the talking quickly starts again. I would never ever forget the slap in the mouth I felt that evening, as real as though it were a brutal physical slap. And yet it was “forgotten,” and life went on, the moment disappearing into the beautiful mess that is life. Yet I can say that it was those two memories sitting side by side across the years that contributed to the emergence of the language activist, the “Afro-Asian-Euro-Indigenous” Guyanese* who eventually came to master the “White language” that the primary school child was singled out for and that her mother was in awe of.

The scientific detachment that often accompanies matters of “policy” and “human rights” clearly cannot alone drive the validation of Guyanese Creole and the further inclusion of all of Guyana’s languages as valid languages for teaching and learning in the school system. For the language aware teacher, being powerless in the face of language discrimination can be soul-destroying. Nowadays it is fashionable to give the condescending nod to Guyanese Creole and those Amer-indigenous languages that are still the mother tongues of many of our students, “Use them to facilitate comprehension.” But generally, teachers in today’s Guyana deliver an English-only curriculum.

The rage for English in Guyana has resulted in a nationwide school curriculum from nursery school through the university level that patently denies the linguistic genius of the nation. This denial further eclipses the various traditional knowledges of the people, relegating them to “folk customs” that may be studied as objects of anthropological consideration at the university and paraded during national cultural events.

A third memory, from many decades later, at New York University during
the 1990s, stands out, and accentuates those two childhood memories. I was enrolled at the PhD level in a programme called Educational Theatre. The course in question was called Drama in Education. One of our tasks was to design a set of drama structures to teach any topic in the school curriculum. The details are vague but what looms up, and again is informed by a series of related memories and experiences all the way from childhood to adulthood, is the power of drama to transform. Drama structures can provide the opportunities for both students and teachers to liberate the voices trapped inside the English-only curriculum. Can we envision a curriculum where the focus on English becomes more tightly concentrated on teaching it as a language for “wider international communication” and the focus on increasing drama structures in the curriculum becomes more tightly concentrated on promoting self-expression and engendering knowledge sharing and knowledge creation for nation building?

The spoken word in drama can then present the material for texts in Guyana’s native languages, none of which, to date, are present to any significant degree in the education system. This, to my mind can be the seedbed for curriculum reform. Who knows whether we cannot in fact, repair the house while we live in it?**

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* In a personal conversation with Carinya Sharples, creative writer and freelance journalist, I was made aware of the ethnic description “Afro-Indigenous.” In some amusement, I labelled my own ethnicity thus.
** When Lawrence Carrington did a short spell–three years–as Vice Chancellor of the University of Guyana from 2009-2012 he described our task of reconstruction in these terms.

The entire issue of Transforming Pedagogy: Practice, Policy, and Resistance (Sargasso 2018-19, I & II) can be accessed via FIU’s Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC). Back issues are also available through dLOC. The issue is available for purchase in the College of Humanities at University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, or through Sargasso’s website. Sargasso is A Journal of Caribbean Literature, Language, and Culture.

This address was made by the coordinator of Fos Klaas, Janice Imhoff, at the inaugural graduation ceremony for the group, which aims to promote the usage of Guyanese Creole in writing and society more widely.

On an evening resembling this one, in 2017, the University of Guyana created history with its first-ever course titled An Introduction to Writing Guyanese Creole. Its criteria for selection were a basic primary education. I liked that! It meant anyone just knowing to read and write could walk through the university door. On the last day of class, Tiicha Charlene suggested we form a group. And so, UG fos Kriiyoliiz kors gave birth to a baby we called Fos Klaas: Guyanese Creolese Advocates.

This however was no ordinary baby. It embodied 14 spirits representing the 14 students who were eager to transfer all we learnt to the rest of our beloved Guyana. Yours truly is the coordinator for this first year and we will be rotating this leadership. So, here I stand, to bring you greetings and to warmly thank the University of Guyana, especially our three teachers – Charlene Wilkinson, Dr. Tamirand De Lisser, and Dhanaiswary Jaganauth – for making our birth equally historic… Awi diiz jomp, plee skuul, lil ABC, big ABC, fos standard an awi miit aal di wee to yuuniivorsitii, an tonait, awi iz fo get wi sorfitiikeet dem. Tangk yu a-plenti.

Ladies and gentlemen! This baby is still growing. We are still being nurtured by our “parents”, each bringing their unique growing-food to help us through the creeping stage. Each “parent” is helping us to develop firm walking legs, so that while we have many stumbles and falls, we will be able to get up and continue to acquire skills, and so become responsible Guyanese Creolese advocates.

Fos Klaas, like all babies, has a mind of its own. If you don’t believe a baby has a mind and knows what she or he wants, think again. Put down a baby who wants to remain cuddled, or try to pick up a toddler who has found the glory of walking… iz sheer woriiz.

So, Fos Klaas has many plans and dividing them into short and long term may not be the ideal thing. For example, mastering writing in the Guyanese Raitin Sistem, perfecting the art of transcription and translation from English to Creolese, and vice versa, all start as short-term plans but will continue well into the long term. Also, acquiring data collection skills will start in the short term and continue into our long existence.

What we know is that through both our long and short-term plans, we will be challenging some misconceptions about Guyanese Creolese. I will briefly mention three.

First misconception: that the Creolese language is bad English in action, and it is a poor man’s play thing. No such thing! Bad English is bad English! Don’t use it to write Creolese. Guyanese Creolese, developed by our ancestors, has structure.

Second misconception: teaching the Guyanese Writing System will confuse school children who already have trouble learning to “speak properly”. That, ladies and gentlemen, means speaking the English language correctly. Maybe, the real question to ask is: why did the children have difficulty in the first place!

Third misconception: that the writing system is meant to regularize the different varieties of Guyanese Creoles into one standard Creole. Let us pause here… the Guyanese Writing System will do no such thing. It has no such intention. So whether you speak the Creolese of the African villages, or of the sugar estates, or of the urban working class, or whichever type of Creolese you speak, all the writing system will do is help you write it just the way you speak it. So if for the English word ‘we’ you say ‘wii’, ‘awii’ or ‘abii’, you will write it likewise.

One of our definite long-term plans is to, one day soon, gallop enough running speed so we can lift off and fly. To where are we flying? To meet with other groups, like the already established Informal Working Group, and the soon to be established Guyanese Languages Unit. Together we hope to advocate for the Creolese language to become an official language, right alongside the English language, not in front of it (even though madam chairperson that mightn’t be a bad idea!), but definitely not behind it – where it is now and where it is not being taken seriously. We want it accepted as a language with equal respect.

Gone must be the days when those who speak Creolese hear their mother tongue ONLY through the telecommunication giants who use their language in advertisements to enrich themselves. Gone must be the days when their mother tongue is heard on the drama stage at the National Cultural Centre for actors to receive awards predominantly for cheap melodramas or slapstick comedies. And gone must be the days when the only time politicians seem to find the mother tongue useful is when they seek electoral votes. Those who speak ONLY Creolese must have their voices heard and their writings read and accepted in our legal system, our education system and in our health system. “Wa gud fo di guus mos gud fo di gyanda, ya!”

In closing, may I ask you to imagine this: Students about to take an examination – for example, the one we once called Common Entrance. Imagine the invigilator saying, “Raise your hand if you want to do this examination in the English language… And raise your hand if you want to do this examination in Guyanese Creolese”. And then she concludes, “All those who can do this examination in either language say, yes!”

Yes! This we must accomplish…. in my lifetime and in yours.

[NB: This is an edited version of a previously published post.]

By Janice Imhoff, Coordinator, Fos Klaas

Very high energies were released when the University of Guyana (UG) held its course: Introduction to Writing in Guyanese Creole. This made history: one, because it was the first of its kind after more than a half century of UG’s existence; and two, it must be considered among the firsts of all other sincere attempts to build upon a post-emancipation creation.

Those energies led a group of participants to form Fos Klaas (First Class). This is not yet the definitive name; others, such as Creolese Language Activists, either as an extension or a replacement, are being considered. The group’s philosophy and its main objectives have not been finalised. Fos Klaas has 13 members: 9 females and 4 males with ages ranging from the 20s to 70s. Our three Creolese teachers – Charlene Wilkinson, Dhanaiswary Jaganauth and Dr. Tamir De Lisser – are ex officio members. We boast inclusivity! We reflect the diversity of our Guyanese heritage by way of race/ethnicity, geographic location, occupation and more. Our visually challenged participant used Braille to write Creolese!

So, what are some of Fos Klaas’s plans? For this quarter, we’re heading to Parika for our first data-collecting exercise. This was organised by one member, Robert Samaroo. Next is a trip to University of Guyana’s Berbice Campus, Tain. There we will meet and collaborate with other Creolese-speaking enthusiasts. Finally, in 2018, we’ll publish a booklet titled Why a Guyanese Writing System? and develop a working relationship with the Informal Working Group for Language Policy at UG.

These combined efforts are meant to agitate for a Guyana language policy, the pillars of which must be the acceptance of Creolese as an official language, and the introduction of multilingualism alongside English Language into our education, legal and social systems, throughout the Guyanese community.

Fos Klass is currently open only to members of the Introduction to Writing in Guyanese Creole course, but may open up in future. Sign up to our newsletter for more updates.