Linguistic Echoes: The New 'englishes' Disempowring English

The politics of Linguistic Recycling and Cultural Regeneration: 

Comparative literature studies the circulation of movements, genres, ideas, themes, images, archetypes, and also language since language is a fundamental constituent of the literary work.

According to Bill Ashcroft:  

Language is a fundamental site of struggle for post-colonial discourse because the colonial process itself begins in laguage. The control over language by the imperial centre – whether achieved by displacing native languages, by installing itself as a ‘standard’ against other variants which are constituted as ‘impurities’, or by planting the language or by planting the language of empire in a new place – remains the most potent instrument of cultural control. Language provides the termes by which reality may be constituted ; it provides the names by which the world may be ‘known’. Its system of values – its suppositions, its geography, its concept of history, of difference, its myriad gradations of distinction – becomes the system upon which social, economic, and political discourses are grounded.

One of the most subtle demonstrations of the power of language is the means by which it provides, through the function of naming, a technique for knowing a colonised place or peaople. To name the world is to ‘understand’ it, to know it and to have control over it. […] To name reality is to exert power over it, simply because the dominant language becomes the way in which it is known .

There are several responses to this dominance of the imperial language, but two present themselves immediately in the decolonizing process – rejection and subversion. The process of radical decolonisation proposed by Ngugi Wa Thiong’o is a good demonstration of the first alternative. Ngugi’s programme for restoring an ethnic or national identity embedded in the mother tongue involves a rejection of English, a refusal to use it for his writing, a refusal to accede to the kind of world and reality it appears to name, a refusal submit to the political dominance its use implies. This stance of rejection rests upon the assumption that an essential Gikuyu identity may be regained, an identity which the language of the coloniser seems to have displaced or dispersed.

However, many more writers have felt that this appeal to some essential cultural identity is doomed to failure, indeed, misunderstands the heterogeneous nature of human experience. […]The appropriation of the language is essentially a subversive strategy, for the adaptation of the ‘standard’ language to the demands and requirements of the place and society into which it has been appropriated amounts to a far more subtle rejection of the political power of the standard language. In Chinua Achebe’s words this is a process by which the language is made to bear the weight and texture of a different experience. In doing so it becomes a different language. By adapting the alien language to the exigencies of a mother grammar, syntax, vocabulary, and by giving a shape to the variations of the speaking voice, such writers and speakers construct an ‘english’ which amounts to a very different linguistic vehicle from the received standard colonial ‘English’. […]

The process of language adaptation is linguistically profound because it establishes a medium which fractures the concept of a standard language and installs the ‘marginal’ variations of language use as the actual network of a particular language. (The Post-colonial Studies Reader, P283-4)

Subversive Strategies of Adaptation / Appropriation:  

• Relexification: (not to be confused with other concepts like translation, loan translation, transference, transmutation, nativization, indigenization, interference, calquing or calking…) 

According to Chantal Zabus: Loreto Todd's felicitous formulation - 'the relexification of one's mother tongue, using English vocabulary but indigenous structures and rhythms' - best describes the process at work when the African language is simulated in a Europhone text. […] The making of a new register of communication out of an alien lexicon. […]

Whether Alfred Sauvy meant it or not when he coined the phrase - le tiers monde - after the French tiers état, the 'Third World' has become the site of the 'third code' … This new register of communication, which is neither the European target language nor the indigenous source language, functions as an 'interlanguage' or as a 'third register'   (P314-5)

• Deterritorialization / Reterritorialization of language:

A terminology coined by Deleuze and Guattari in their Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature. Defining Minor Literature as a literature written in a major language (dominant / imposed language). As language is the product of its native socio-cultural context, its use by minority writers who belong to different socio-cultural contexts causes them to deterritorialize the major language from its original territory. The way the will deal with the impossibility of writing in that major language leads to a reterritorialization of language.     

According to Chen Yongguo: "[…] minor use of language may result in both deterritorialization and reterritorialization of English as the major language at the same time which will usher in a new era not only of minor languages but also of minor literatures in new englishes." (The Politics of Minor Language, P 01)

Study Case: 

• Recycling / Revising / Subverting his-story through the Step-Mother Tongue: 

Columbus Ghost

i am Christopher columbus

just call me cris

i am de who  did  miss  the  land

india

i thought i'd discover

that which was never

how clever of me to see  the land

beyond

i came to tame

and claim

in the name of spain

i am cris

dont  dis

my his-story

i  inspired  hawkins   livingston

musolini botha

bush

i exterminated

perpetuated

hatered

against redmen  yellowmen

with blackmen i make no friend

i attack arawak

cut off their  head

wrote instead

that the caribs ate them like bread

i never told you this before

but my chief navigator was a

   MOOR

you know the moors

they discovered spain

those blacks who came from the

   afrikan  terrain

the idea that the world was round

i got from these same b acks in

   some little spanish town

now you may ask what was

   blacks doin there

but they ruled us for over 700

   years

they made a great mistake then

instead of enslavin us they made

   us their  friend

some survived

stayed alive

fought the invasion

european   division

english   agression

the fight between europe and

   european expansion

i wrote your history for you

did not tell you  true

not all blackmen came as slaves

listen you will know the truth in

   the waves

that brought the ships

lips lie

to keep intact

oppression of black skin

a sin

a myth

i am cris

the church perch on the

   opportunity to spread

the religion of the dead

through misconception

the assumption

that this world was new

the wind blew us to save the

   earth

from  beast  like  men

friend i am not

blot out the spot

that claim they are men like us

i am Christopher columbus

i gave europe pwer over all the

   earth

500 years of your blood sweat

   and tears

now you celebrate

recreate  your   death

let the glasses  touch

with the blood of your fathers and

   mothers

give a toast

HOST

my arrival

your dyin my  survival

the land is sti I mine

the pope is still the divine

yes

drink your  own  blood

call it wine

nothin in the pages of my history

will blot out your  misery

you shall celebrate my victory

your  children  praise  me

i am their only history

i am Christopher columbus

i died

but you made me live

give me the sea once more

let me discover you again

the stain

my fathers sons rule

fool

you  celebrate  my   comin

i will not go

not from your mind

restore me for all to  see

keepers of life

shepherds  of  my   people

lead them to the altar of lies

your ancestors cries will not be

   heard

word after word

pages of  history  written

the victims are once more bitten

1492 to you the beginnin of

   western world democracy

1492 to me the beginnin of white

   supremacy

• Recycling Caliban’s Curse From the Caribbean:

You taught me language ; and my profit on’t

Is, I know how to curse : the red-plague rid you

For learning me your language !

William Shakespeare, The Tempest, I, ii

[…] And so all this fuss over empire – what went wrong here, what went wrong there – always makes me quite crazy, for I can say to them what went wrong : they should never have left their home, their precious England, a place they love so much, a place they had to leave but could never forget. And so everywhere they went they turned it into England ; everybody they met they turned English. But no place could ever really be England, and nobody who did not look exactly like them would ever be English, so you can imagine the destruction of people and land that came from that […]

In the Antigua that I knew, we lived on a street named after an English maritime criminal, Horatio Nelson, and all the other streets around us were named after some other English maritime criminals. There was Rodney Street, there was Hood Street, there was Hawkins Street, and there was Drake Street. There were flamboyant trees and mahogany trees lining East Street. Government House, the place where the Governor, the person standing in for the Queen, lived, was on East Street. Government House was surrounded by a high white wall – and to show how cowed we must have been, no one ever wrote bad things on it ; it remained clean and white and high. […]

Do you ever try to understand why people like me cannot get over the past, cannot forgive and cannot forget ? […]

[W]hat I see is the millions of people, of whom I am just one, made orphans : no motherland, no fatherland, no gods, no mounds of earth for holy ground, no excess of love which might lead to the things that an excess of love sometimes brings, and worst and most painful of all, no tongue. For isn’t it odd that the only language I have in which to speak of this crime is the language of the criminal who committed the crime ? And what can that really mean ? […]

Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place      

• Prison language vs nation language       

Ashanti, Congo, Yoruba, all that mighty coast of western Africa was imported into the Caribbean.  And we had the arrival in our area of a new language structure.  It consisted of many languages but basically they had a common semantic and stylistic form.  What these languages had to do, however, was to submerge themselves, because officially the conquering peoples -- the Spaniards, the English, the French, and the Dutch -- insisted that the language of public discourse and conversation, of obedience, command and conception should be English, French, Spanish, or Dutch.  They did not wish to hear people speaking Ashanti or any of these Congolese languages.  Its status became one of inferiority.  Similarly, its speakers were slaves.  They were conceived of as inferiors -- non-human, in fact.  But this very submergence served an interesting interculturative purpose, because although people continued to speak English as it was spoken in Elizabethan times and on through the Romantic and Victorian ages, that English was, nonetheless, still being influenced by the underground language, the submerged language that the slaves had brought.  And that underground language was constantly transforming itself into new forms.  It was moving from a purely African form to a form which was African but which was adapted to the new environment and adapted to the cultural imperative of the European languages.  And it was influencing the way in which the English, French, Dutch, and Spaniards spoke their own languages.  So there was a very complex process taking place, which is now beginning to surface in our literature […]

People were forced to learn things which had no relevance to themselves.  Paradoxically, in the Caribbean (as in many other 'cultural disaster' areas), the people educated in this system came to know more, even today, about English kings and queens than they do about our own national heroes, our own slave rebels, the people who helped to build and to destroy our society.  We are more excited by their literary models, by the concept of, say, Sherwood Forest and Robin Hood than we are by Nanny of the Maroons, a name some of us didn't even know until a few years ago.  And in terms of what we write, our perceptual models, we are more conscious (in terms of sensibility) of the falling snow, for instance [...] than of the force of the hurricanes which take place every year.  In other words, we haven't got the syllables, the syllabic intelligence, to describe the hurricane, which is our own experience, whereas we can describe the imported alien experience of the snowfall. […]

the language which is influenced very strongly by the African model, the African aspect of our New World/Caribbean heritage.  English it may be in terms of some of its lexical features.  But in its contours, its rhythm and timber, its sound explosions, it is not English, even though the words, as you hear them, might be English to a greater or lesser degree. 

Kamau Brathwaite, The Story of the Voice

Bans a Killin 

So yuh a de man me hear bout! Ah yuh dem seh dah teck Whole heap a English oat seh dat yuh gwine kill dialec! Meck me get it straight, mas Charlie, For me no quite understand – Yuh gwine kill all English dialec Or jus Jamaica one? Ef yuh dah equal up wid English Language, den wha meck Yuh gwine go feel inferior when It come to dialec? Ef yuh cyaan sing 'Linstead Market' An 'Water come a me yeye’ Yuh wi haffi tap sing 'Auld lang syne’ An ‘Comin through de rye'. Dah language weh yuh proud a, Weh yuh honour an respec – Po Mas Charlie, yuh no know se Dat it spring from dialec! Dat dem start fi try tun language From de fourteen century - Five hundred years gawn an dem got More dialec dan we! Yuh wi haffi kill de Lancashire, De Yorkshire, de Cockney, De broad Scotch and de Irish brogue Before yuh start kill me! Yuh wi haffi get de Oxford Book A English Verse, an tear Out Chaucer, Burns, Lady Grizelle An plenty a Shakespeare! When yuh done kill 'wit' an 'humour', When yuh kill 'variety', Yuh wi haffi fine a way fi kill Originality! An mine how yuh dah read dem English Book deh pon yuh shelf, For ef yuh drop a 'h' yuh mighta Haffi kill yuhself!

So you’re the man I hear about! You’re the one that’s made A whole lot of English oaths that say You’re gonna kill dialect! Let me get it straight, Mr. Charlie, For I don’t quite understand – Are you gonna kill all English dialects Or just the Jamaican one? If you’ve examined the English Language, Then what makes you feel inferior when it comes to dialects?If you can’t sing ‘Linstead Market’ And ‘Water come a me yeye’ Then we have to stop singing ‘Auld lang syne’ And ‘Comin through de rye’. The language you are so proud of, Which you honor and respect— Poor Mr. Charlie, don’t you see that It springs from dialects! They've tried to turn it into a language From the fourteenth century – Five hundred years have passed and now They’ve got more dialects than we do! You would have to kill the Lancashire,The Yorkshire, the Cockney, The broad Scotch and the Irish brogue Before you start to kill me! You would have to get the Oxford Book Of English Verse and tear Out Chaucer, Burns, Lady Grizelle And lots of Shakespeare! When you’ve finished killing ‘wit’ and ‘humor’, When you’ve killed ‘variety’, You will have to find a way to kill Originality! And how are you gonna read those English Books there upon your shelf, ‘Cause if you drop a ‘h’ you might Have to kill yourself!

                                                                               Louise Bennett

• Colonizing the Colonizer's Language

Colonization in reverse

Wat a joyful news, miss Mattie,
I feel like me heart gwine burs
Jamaica people colonizin
Englan in Reverse

By de hundred, by de tousan
From country and from town,
By de ship-load, by de plane load
Jamica is Englan boun.

Dem a pour out a Jamaica,
Everybody future plan
Is fe get a big-time job
An settle in de mother lan.

What an islan! What a people!
Man an woman, old an young
Jus a pack dem bag an baggage
An turn history upside dung!

Some people doan like travel,
But fe show dem loyalty
Dem all a open up cheap-fare-
To-England agency.

An week by week dem shippin off
Dem countryman like fire,
Fe immigrate an populate
De seat a de Empire.

Oonoo see how life is funny,
Oonoo see da turnabout?
jamaica live fe box bread
Out a English people mout’.

For wen dem ketch a Englan,
An start play dem different role,
Some will settle down to work
An some will settle fe de dole.

Jane says de dole is not too bad
Because dey payin she
Two pounds a week fe seek a job
dat suit her dignity.

Me say Jane will never fine work
At de rate how she dah look,
For all day she stay popn Aunt Fan couch
An read love-story book.

Wat a devilment a Englan!
Dem face war an brave de worse,
But me wonderin how dem gwine stan
Colonizin in reverse

Louise Bennett

• Caliban's Curse from UK: 

Linton Kwesi Johnson - Inglan Is A Bitch

Original Text in Jamaican Creole (“Patois”)

Version in Standard English

w´en mi jus´ come to Landan toun mi use to work pan di andahgroun but workin´ pan di andahgroun y´u don´t get fi know your way around   Inglan is a bitch dere´s no escapin it Inglan is a bitch dere´s no runnin´ whey fram it   mi get a lickle jab in a bih ´otell an´ awftah a while, mi woz doin´ quite well dem staat mi aaf as a dish-washah but w´en mi tek a stack, mi noh tun clack-watchah   Inglan is a bitch dere´s no escapin it Inglan is a bitch no baddah try fi hide fram it   w´en dem gi´ you di lickle wage packit fus dem rab it wid dem big tax rackit y´u haffi struggle fi mek en´s meet an´ w´en y´u goh a y´u bed y´u jus´ can´t sleep   Inglan is a bitch dere´s no escaping it  Inglan is a bitch, fi true a noh lie mi a tell, a true   mi use to work dig ditch w´en it cowl noh bitch mi did strang like a mule, but bwoy, mi did fool den awftah a while mi jus´ stap dhu ovahtime den awftah a while mi jus´ phu dung mi tool   Inglan is a bitch dere´s no escapin it Inglan is a bitch y´u haffi know how fi survive in it   well mi dhu day wok an´ mi dhu nite wok mi dhu clean wok an´ mi dhu dutty wok dem seh dat black man is very lazy but if y´u si how mi wok y´u woulda sey mi crazy   Inglan is a bitch dere´s no escapin it Inglan is a bitch y´u bettah face up to it   dem a have a lickle facktri up inna Brackly inna disya facktri all dem dhu is pack crackry fi di laas fifteen years dem get mi laybah now awftah fifteen years mi fall out a fayvah   Inglan is a bitch dere´s no escapin it Inglan is a bitch dere´s no runnin´ whey fram it   mi know dem have work, work in abundant yet still, dem mek mi redundant now, at fifty-five mi gettin´ quite ol´ yet still, dem sen´ mi fi goh draw dole   Inglan is a bitch dere´s no escapin it Inglan is a bitch, fi true is whey wi a goh dhu ´bout it?

when I’d just come to London town I used to work upon the underground but working upon the underground you don’t get to know your way around England is a bitch there’s no escaping it England is a bitch there’s no running away from it I got a little job in a big hotel and after a while, I was doing quite well they started me off as a dishwasher but when I took a stack, I didn’t turn clock watcher England is a bitch there’s no escaping it England is a bitch no bother trying to hide from it when they give you a little wage packet first they rob it with their big tax racket [fraud] you have to struggle to make ends meet and when you go to your bed you just can’t sleep England is a bitch there’s no escaping it England is a bitch, for true it’s no lie that I’m telling, a truth I used to work digging ditches when it was cold  no bitching [no lie] I was strong like a mule, but boy, I was foolish then after a while I just stopped doing overtime then after a while I just put down my tool England is a bitch there’s no escaping it England is a bitch you have to know how to survive in it well I did day work and I did night work I did clean work and I did dirty work they say that black man is very lazy but if you had seen how I worked you would  have said I was crazy England is a bitch there’s no escaping it England is a bitch you had better face up to it They have a little factory up in Brackly in this here factory all they do is pack crockery for the last fifteen years they have got my labour now after fifteen years I’ve fallen out of favour England is a bitch there’s no escaping it England is a bitch there’s no running away from it I know they have work, work in abundance yet still, they make me redundant now at fifty-five I’m getting quite old yet still, they send me to go draw dole [unemployment benefit] England is a bitch there’s no escaping it England is a bitch, for truth It’s what are we going to do about it?