Velma Pollard

In "Language and Jamaican Literature," Belma Pollard discusses the relationship between language and literature. Disrespected languages are often associated with disrespected literatures, typically when the status of the speakers is low. In post-plantation societies like Jamaica, the European language brought by colonizers became the respected official language, while the native Creole language was seen as disrespected. However, Jamaican Creole has a strong structural relationship with certain West African languages, despite being regarded as broken English by some. In Jamaican literature, writers like Pollard incorporate both the formal colonist language and the popular native language, enriching the language used in Jamaican literature. Language and Jamaican Literature by Belma Pollard. Disrespected literatures are written in disrespected languages. Those languages are usually disrespected when the status of people who speak them is low. In post-plantation societies, a respected language is the European language, which was brought with the people who colonized the country. The native disrespected language was usually the Creole word developed in the plantation environment where overseers speaking European languages and enslaved people speaking West African languages interacted. In Jamaica, the respected official language became English, and the native disrespected language was the native and popular Jamaica Creole. These two languages are lexically related and give the impression of being closer than they are, in fact, but Jamaican Creole is still regarded as broken English by people who are not paying attention to the linguistic analysis, which indicates a strong structural relationship with certain West African languages. These two languages, the colonial and the popular native Creole, have accommodated each other in the Jamaican environment. That is because the speaker and their situation determine its use. A fascinating feature of this accommodation is the ability of an individual to switch from one language to the other within the same speech event. I hope to illustrate how I and other Jamaican writers infuse the formal talks with official colonist language in which most of us write with the popular Jamaican native language. The result has been to enrich the fabric that has become the language in which Jamaican literature is written.