…a first in Guyana, using our heart language
Independence Day this year will take on added significance when Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC) and the Jesus Film Project launch the “Jesus film in Guyanese Creole”.
The film is a two-hour docudrama about the life of Christ based on the Gospel of Luke. Guyanese Creole is the second language that the film has been translated into in Guyana. The first was in the Western Carib language last year. As of April 1 this year, the film has been translated into 1,114 languages since its initial release in 1979.
The official launch will take place on May 26 from 18:00hrs at the Diplomat Centre (formerly known as Central Assembly of God) on Church and East Sts. Admission is absolutely free, and copies of the film on DVD will be on sale at $1000 each.
The aim of releasing this film is to reach every nation, tribe, people and tongue, helping them see and hear the story of Jesus in a language they can understand. So whether a person speaks Swahili, French, or Guyanese Creole, he or she will encounter the life and message of Jesus in a language “of the heart.”
This is a historic moment for Guyana because, linguistically, there has not been a similar project of this magnitude undertaken using our Guyanese Creole (Creolese). Many persons may argue that the film “corrupts” the Standard English used in the film, but it is not so. Guyanese Creole is a language by itself with several dialects. The film is a translation or voice-over of the original Jesus film and makes use of the varieties of Guyanese speech so that it is representative of the different dialects of Guyanese Creole, whether it is urban or rural (or Georgetown, Corentyne, or Essequibo).
Nelson Mandela once remarked, “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language that goes to his heart.” The importance of communicating in one’s “heart language” has been noted since the 1950s by a UNESCO resolution which makes a statement about the importance of using one’s first language to teach a second language. Over the past four decades a lot of work has been done in the Caribbean region to raise the importance of Creole and Indigenous languages. Quite notably, Professor Dennis Craig has published immensely on the role of our native language in the classroom. Recently, over the past two decades there has been an overflowing of linguistic research that substantiate raising the status of Creole languages as languages worthy of being used in all spheres of life, and the necessity of employing the “heart” language in the education process. Quite recently as January, 2011, linguists and politicians from around the Caribbean met at UWI, Mona, Jamaica to craft the first ever Charter on Language Policy and Language Rights in the Creole-Speaking Caribbean. The Charter outlines the need for recognition of the rights of speakers of Creole and Indigenous languages in Caribbean territories.
The response around the world has been phenomenal because people hear the greatest love story in a language filled with expressions, accents, and vocabularies that they can understand and relate to. It is more than just a film to get a good laugh out of, because our language, Guyanese Creole, is a medium through which we can discuss serious matters.
“It is a language, we believe, that God speaks and communicates with us,” concludes the release from the Campus Crusade for Christ.