By Alim Hosein
[In a follow-up to his essay last week on the 2024 Joint Conference of the Society for Caribbean Linguistics and the Society for Pidgin Languages set for August 5 – 9 at the University of Guyana Turkeyen and Berbice Campuses and hosted by the Department of Language and Cultural Studies, Alim Hosein looks at the study of these languages and oral literature at UG and the further relevance of the conference.
Alim Hosein is a leading linguist at the UG and one of the administrators of the conference. He has served as Dean of the Faculty of Education and Humanities and Head of the Language and Cultural Studies Department, and has contributed several times to this column]
Some readers of last week’s article on the Conference on pidgin, creole and Indigenous languages being hosted by the Turkeyen and Berbice campuses (August 5-9, 2024) might have thought that the study of these languages is a new thing at the University of Guyana. This is far from the truth. The university has a long and honourable record in research, publication, advocacy and teaching of these languages, with courses and programmes in the Faculty of Education and Humanities which includes the Division of Humanities at the Berbice Campus. To give a better idea of how we contribute to sustaining, creating, understanding about, promoting and studying the native languages of Guyana, I outline below some of our work, with inputs from my colleagues at both campuses. As I hope you will see, these programmes create a good grounding at the undergraduate level in these languages.
At both campuses, the focus on languages has been a primary pursuit of the university. Courses in Linguistics and Literature had existed from the 1960s at Turkeyen. When the Berbice campus was opened 25 years ago, such programmes were among the first to be offered.
Indeed, the very first conference of the Society of Caribbean Linguistics (SCL) was held at the University of Guyana in 1976, under the theme “New Directions in Creole Studies”. The SCL was formed in 1974, so it is returning to Guyana as part of its 20th Anniversary. The SCL’s 10th Biennial Conference was also held in Guyana in 1994, and this was a joint conference with the Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics (SPCL). The theme was “Continuity and Change in the Study of Creole Languages and Society”.
An amazing number of remarkable scholars who went on to be foremost international linguists in pidgin and creole languages, and in Linguistics generally, are Guyanese who either had their early careers at UG and/or have remained connected to it over many decades. Among them are Richard Allsopp, Jeanette Allsopp, George Cave, John Rickford, Walter Edwards, Hubert Devonish, Ian Robertson, Dennis Craig, Shondell Nero, Dhanis Jaganauth, and Kean Gibson.
Guyana has also made major contributions to world research in pidgins and creoles and Indigenous languages. It was one of the two major research grounds for Dereck Bickerton’s research for his textbook Dynamics of a Creole System (1975) which became a seminal publication in the field. Ian Robertson discovered a Dutch Creole in Guyana which has the distinction of proving that the lexicon of a creole language could come from the language of the so-called subordinate peoples and not only from the European (so-called superior) language.
The Linguistics programme at UG’s campuses include courses which exclusively focus on pidgin and creole languages. In these courses, students research the histories of these languages, investigate their grammars, pragmatics and social uses, and delve into theories about these languages. Of course, the local environment provides a living laboratory for the students, so field work is a major component of these courses. Students conduct independent field-based research into various aspects of Guyanese Creole and present papers on their findings. There are also other courses in the technical aspects of language – such as Phonology, Morphology and Syntax – which contribute to such research and study by providing the students with the linguistic knowledge and tools to conduct their work and to understand our languages. Yet other courses assist students in understanding the important critical dynamics between language and society. In these courses, we explore various aspects of the use of Guyanese Creole in the society.
Linguistics is also a strong backbone of the programme for the teachers who are in the UG Bachelor of Education programme, given the particular language situation of Guyana, with its declared official language being English, but with its children’s native language being Guyanese Creole or one of the existing Indigenous languages. Apart from their courses in Education, these teacher-students take pidgin and creole languages and other Linguistics courses outlined earlier. There are also special courses in Linguistics and Language Teaching, a central focus of which is on understanding language acquisition and language learning, and on the application of Linguistics in the particular type of language classes we have in Guyana. Teaching methodologies and education strategies for creole-speaking situations are also a strong focus. At the Berbice Campus, the lecturers extended this beyond the classroom and have had their students conduct capacity-building workshops on contemporary language teaching methodologies for teachers at the Cyril Potter College of Education, Rose Hall Centre. The students there also took on the key issue of language policy in Guyana, constructing blogs to shed light on learners’ language learning struggles and what is required to address their struggles. The Berbice Campus also took a lead in public advocacy for Language Rights.
The Turkeyen campus focuses strongly on appropriate teaching methodologies, issues of language awareness and language rights in Education, and in giving students a good understanding of Guyanese Creole and other creole languages. In all areas of linguistics, research is being done, presented at conferences and published on topics such as Guyanese phonology, idioms, language acquisition, language teaching approaches, attitudes to language, language variation and change, and the sociolinguistics of Guyanese Creole, among other aspects of Guyanese Creole and other creole languages in the Caribbean and elsewhere.
In recent years, a strong focus has emerged on local Indigenous languages, and language advocacy and language rights, particularly with the establishment of the Guyana Languages Unit (GLU) in 2020. This unit focuses on language discrimination and language rights, language planning and language policy, child language acquisition, language education in Guyana and language disorders in Guyana. It also researches, archives and teaches Guyanese languages.
In its short life, the GLU has already done much – it has held an international conference on Language Policy and Language Rights in the Creole-speaking Caribbean, out of which emerged the Charter of Language Policy and Language Rights in the Creole-speaking Caribbean. It has revived and updated a spelling system for Guyanese Creole. During the Covid-19 pandemic, it successfully trained persons to translate vital public-service information into Guyanese Creole and local Indigenous languages. This was a major activity to bring Indigenous languages to a national level of importance. It has also held major Mother-Language Day activities on and off campus, generating more involvement of persons and respect and understanding of native languages.
The establishment of the GLU has allowed the faculty to do a lot of essential groundwork in language awareness in Guyana, and to make a number of important linkages with other institutions in Guyana, the Caribbean and further afield to enhance the work of promoting understanding and acceptance of the creole and Indigenous languages of Guyana. It is doing a great amount of significant work with our Indigenous people on language recognition, language preservation, translation, and mother language education. It is expected that the GLU will help to establish UG as an international centre for Creole, Indigenous and Endangered Language research and research in other areas of Linguistics.
Another important unit at UG is the Amerindian Research Unit (ARU) which has primary responsibility for the study of Indigenous peoples. Interestingly, this unit is a direct outgrowth of a special Linguistics programme – the Amerindian Languages Project (ALP), founded in 1977 by Prof Walter Edwards. The ALP succeeded very well, producing dictionaries and grammars of Akawaio, Arekuna, Macushi, and Warau languages, cultural descriptions, a bulletin – the Bulletin of the Amerindian Languages Programme (BALP) – and the Focus on Amerindians radio programme.
The ARU now runs a wider programme in Anthropology, which considerably expands the preparation of students to study and understand peoples and cultures. The local Indigenous peoples are given a special place in the programme, which includes special courses on the Indigenous peoples of Guyana. The unit also conducts much archaeological work in Guyana, often in collaboration with other universities. This work helps to establish a better understanding of the richness and importance of the Indigenous peoples, and to undo much of the misunderstanding of them and their cultures. The ARU works closely with the GLU on language projects among the Indigenous people.
Understanding and valuing pidgin, creole and Indigenous language is not just a matter of pure Linguistics. Courses at UG which focus on West Indian Literature are compulsory for all students majoring in Linguistics. In these courses, students study works written in authentic West Indian voices, and they understand how West Indian writers use language to recreate the experiences and aspirations of creole-speaking people. These writers not only fashion the creole language into a literary medium, but they exploit the language to speak back to the English tradition, and they open new ground in understanding the West Indian person and society. Understanding the imaginative life of West Indian people is central to the understanding of their languages.
Other courses such as Oral Traditions focus closely on the non-written expressions of culture. This course is very relevant to Guyana, Creole, and Indigenous languages since the bulk of our cultural knowledge has been handed down in oral rather than written form. These include Indigenous stories about creation, movements of people, how places got their names, how various things that we take for granted came to be the way they are. Then, of course, there is the Afro-Guyanese tradition of Kwe-Kwe, proverbs, Nancy Tori, and so on, and the East Indian rhyming songs, Lawa, Nine-Day and other traditions.
As interest in, and understanding of, our native languages grow, the Faculty of Education and Humanities is open to more Guyanese – and others – joining our courses and programmes.
