Dear Editor,
After reading Dr Frank Anthony’s article, `Urgent steps must be taken by gov’t to preserve Amerindian languages’ dated September 15th, 2018, it is with utmost urgency that I respond expressing my disagreement with the lack of effort expressed on the part of the Amerindian people themselves. I disagree that the government should solely be looked at to solve this problem. As we all know there are many reasons why languages die, one of which is due to lack of speakers. Why are these Amerindian languages dying so radically? Mostly due to stigmatisation and the feeling that the language is useless in the grander scheme of things ( I have spoken to quite a few Amerindian youth and those were their reasons for lack of interest in learning or conversing with each other in their native languages once they come to town). We all know that just teaching a language in school doesn’t guarantee that the language wouldn’t die. Look at Spanish and French that we learn in high school- how many of us can honestly say we are fluent now? The problem with just teaching a language without any culture is that it remains just a vocabulary and not a part of everyday life. I have an idea as to why the Indian words have been maintained in the vocabulary of Guyanese up to this day, e.g. pholourie and sada roti etc. It is because we are surrounded by not only the food but we are engrossed in the culture of the people. Where there is no culture there is no language sustenance. I believe the heaviest part of ensuring the languages don’t die relies on the Amerindians themselves in having that self pride and that feeling that regardless of how they were made to feel ashamed or marginalised of their language (I actually heard somebody say .. “eh eh like she saying some obeah something” while a girl was singing a song in her native language) and teach it to their children. I understand fully that they were taught to believe they are savages, firstly that their gods are heathenish so all hail Jesus. Consequently, they have lost their sense of identity, even where they live are “missions” and not their original names, why still? ( I was so happy to hear that St Cuthbert’s Mission was being renamed to Pakuri, but saddened when a petition was published requesting for the name to be reverted, shall we yet again blame indoctrination?)
I completely understand not wanting to be who you truly are out of fear of being ridiculed or silenced and remembering the brutal punishment and terror meted out to the ancestors who dared hold strong against the will of the “colonizah”, but at some point that fear needs to stop and embracing yourself and who you are needs to start. That being said – I read the article and all that was said with regards to what the government should do to ensure the preservation of Amerindian languages is to have an institute created where the languages are taught. While I think that would be a step in “a” direction, I believe it first starts with the people holding their languages and culture with more pride and resilience and then maybe as a people, Guyanese would recognise them for the culturally vibrant people they are and embrace their languages, not just for the month of September, grass skirts and pepper pot at Christmas.
In addition, I would just like to give an example of a time in Senegal when they were colonised by the French resulting in French becoming their standard language. However, Wollof remains the home/community language. The people were also told they were savages and also criminalised for holding strong. My point is, their government had little to do with the reinforcement of the importance of Wollof into the households/communities. It was the effort and the determination of the peoples themselves while everyone else turned up their noses and spoke French.
While the government admittedly has a moral obligation to make strides to de-stigmatise the culture of the Amerindian people, it will be the conscious effort and diligence of said people to make it work.
Yours faithfully,
Khadidja Bâ
Third year Linguistics major
University of Guyana
