A COLLEAGUE recently suggested that Standard English should be our first language. There is what may be interpreted as a duel between Creole and the English Language we had to learn during Slavery and after to survive and prosper in an apparent changing world. Well, “Eh, is wuh’s duh? Ah seh duh cause ah think ah should respond to meh friend, that is nah that Creole is de issue is that nowadays awe ent reading fuh find out nothing.” What I mean by reading is the fact that the in-depth quest to clarify and analyse any subject matter across the timelines of its event is not considered a purpose. Therefore, two to three-line definitions are presumed enough to execute lengthy crosschecking. Raise this issue and you will confront a response like “Duh’s not wuh happening now.” It’s stupid, yes, but they live on the quick drama of their smartphones and tablets. Believe me, when I mention ‘Tablet’; it’s a tablet indeed. They get high on it. Socially, we’re not challenging them to explore. Our society is in shambles. Let’s do a flashback: Back in the Fourth Standard, Form One onwards, two textbooks were rooted in passing English or Literature, such as any subject that required compositions, etc. The Students Companion, and the First Aid In English. These books are still necessary for many adults.

Knowledge of formal written language is indeed the principle of understanding proper composition to survive. I’ve sympathetically contributed to this bad habit of helping to compose a thesis, here or there, on a subject I had a working or exploring awareness of. But there are lazy and entitled ones who can be a burden rather than a late enthusiastic learner. But decisions are made on impulse.

What are the tools that will make this generation interested in reading and cross-reading to acquire clarity? We allow men who hosted school debates to dwindle away based on pointless bias reasons. But for many of us, looking back, it was young folks in the early dawn of their working lives debating on East Street about whether it was God, Evolution or Alien science that created us. This discourse possibly led to reading on the subject and exploring different possibilities, which led to the strange book titled ‘The Selfish Gene’ going down another road.

We do need the impetus to explore. It can come naturally to explore, but that will not be the majority, because there are houses without bookshelves. Eric is not wrong. The language that Science papers are written in is English, whether it’s American or British. In our debate, Creole is going to be there because Creole is a combination of several Colonial Languages from the African tribes brought here and then enslaved, and those whom legends and science claim had a presence here, and with sprinkles of the indentured and Amerindians, who were here and those who came after. Creole is ours, for example, we define the predicament of the unreasonable man who gets… a “Jumbie lash” that “karma, is fuh real.” This seven-word statement encompasses three diverse cultural languages, English, African, and East Indian, that everyone understands clearly. The fact is, regardless that Creole is an accustomed dialect, we must comprehend that the language of the sciences, legal contracts, the language our laws are written in, and our dissertations must be written composed with, must be well understood, and with that it’s Standard English.