Cherish J'can dialect, but please, no Patois Bible

DIANE ABBOTT

Sunday, January 16, 2011

During Christmas 2010 the British media again ran stories about the so-called Patois Bible. The people behind this project no doubt regard this as a media triumph. But I confess to finding this story intensely irritating.

Do not get me wrong. I am a lover of patois. For me, the rhythms and inflections of Jamaican dialect have a vigour and charm that cannot be surpassed. There are many phrases and sayings that Standard English cannot replicate. Some things can only be said properly in patois. And often it takes less time.

Nothing is more contemptuous than a properly executed sucking of the teeth in the manner of those who communicate in patois. Even English people who cannot understand a word of patois know when they are being cruelly dismissed.

The problem with talk of a patois Bible, particularly when you hear it in a British context, is that the clear implication is that Jamaicans are not literate enough to understand the Bible in Standard English. Yet if there is one book ordinary Jamaicans are brought up to read it is the Bible.

My maternal grandmother never read a novel in her life, but she knew her Bible and understood it perfectly. It is an insult to ordinary Jamaicans to say that, of all books, they cannot understand the Bible.

Furthermore, to talk about translating the Bible into patois entirely misunderstands what patois is. I love it and enjoy hearing people talk in that style. But it is not essentially a written language.

For one thing, it is often a mix of African and Tudor English. The first time I heard the word "buttery" was at my Cambridge college, where it was used routinely to describe a room where food was kept (in this case, the college shop). Cambridge is a university that was established in Tudor times. Many of the words and titles used in this university date back to that era.

So I understood "buttery" to be a yet another old-fashioned English formulation in the manner so many of the words and formulations are used at that ancient university. I was astonished to go back to Jamaica that summer and hear my elderly grandmother calmly refer to her "buttery". And, as in Cambridge, it was an area where she kept food.

So people forget that patois is not just "bad" English or even a different linguistic system. It actually preserves forms of English that go back to the era of the first planters and slave holders on the island. Many a West African can recognise words in Jamaica patois.

But patois is not just about a set of words like French or German. Real Jamaican patois is as much about the rhythm of speech and the way a sentence rises and falls as anything else. Intrinsic to patois are certain sounds and noises that you will not see in a dictionary, but convey a world of meaning.

So translating an English text to a patois text makes no sense. It actually loses half the vigour and charm of attempting to relate a Bible story in patois. In fact, the process does patois and the Bible a disservice. If you take the Bible and its theological meaning seriously, it is clearly unsatisfactory to have it translated into a style of speaking which was never meant to be set out on paper and convey precise theological concepts.

I also think that Jamaicans, whilst they should cherish patois, should also value Standard English. In economic terms, the fact that Jamaicans speak English as their first language is enormously important. English is the language of world commerce. In India, millions of dollars are poured into making sure educated Indians can speak good English, in order that they can compete in the call centre market.

Jamaicans already speak English. But sometimes they seem to take this huge asset for granted. Patois is charming, but it will not help Jamaica compete in the international marketplace. Standard English will.

Patois has it charms and should never die. But stories in the British media about translating the Bible into patois only play into a stereotype that Jamaicans are ignorant, and do the island a huge disservice.

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Cherish J'can dialect, but please, no Patois Bible