The Origins of the Use of Creole English in Caribbean Poetry

Q. the origins of the use of creole English in Caribbean poetry .

Ans: colonial control and resistance to it took the form of revolutions and battles. Language too is an effective medium for exerting control and battles can be fought on the linguistic terrain. Discussing the politics of language in African literature, the Kenyan novelist, playwright and activist ngugi wa thiong’ o states: ‘ the domination of a peoples’s language by the language of the colonizing nations was crucial to the domination of the mental universe of the colonised’. .  Applying this to the Caribbean situation one sees the various ways in which the slaves were discouraged from using their native languages. They were separated from other slaves of the same linguistic background because their masters feared that communication between them might lead to plan of escape and rebellion. The gradual erasure of the native language from their minds was accompanied with the use of creole, an adaptation of the colonizer’s language. Creole refers to any one of a family of languages developed in the Caribbean by African slaves in contact with one or more of the European languages. It became the first language for succeeding generations. In any given region in the Caribbean a multitude of dialects interweave to form a generally comprehensive linguistic continuum/ thus making the discourse “polyglossic or polydialectical”. The theory of the creole continuum or more accurately the post ‘post-creole speech continuum’ arises out of this polyglossic situation. In a single speech community, people might use variants ranging from creolized forms at one end to language forms closer to standard language at the other end. Most individuals command competence of a small range of varieties along the linguistic continuum, ‘the breadth of the span depending on the breadth of their social contact’. The more educated a person the more likely is he to speak the standard form of a language. Or a person might speak creole as the language of daily common contact and use the standard form at his place of work. This theory then affirms the notion of language as practice.

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