Joan Cambridge attended the June 2017 course ‘Introduction to Writing in Guyanese Creole’. Here she shares her thoughts and feedback on what she learned.
The Department of Language and Cultural Studies in the Faculty of Education at the University of Guyana’s ‘Introduction to Writing in Guyanese Creole’ has been for me – a life changing – better – a life renewing experience; it was an invitation to take ‘the path less travelled…that has made all the difference’ to this writer…working on my autobiography.
This cerebral journey back to childhood is the essential examination of one’s life that every rational person accepts – especially if she happens to be an ageing ex-colonial woman of African descent… determined to define her raison d’être so far; in the final analysis – of what significance…what relevance.. and will the rest of my life be worth the journey in this persistent culture of marronage driven by History stalking my quest to find a sirihii (a short cut) to a brighter future than one that is damned – ‘senility’ or – (just as pejorative if not redefined) ‘a second childhood’.
Surely those like myself…attempting to slip ‘magically greased out of the locks and chains of definitions’ know that if we would reinvent ourselves we must think in our own idiom while inspiring our children the same; rather than discouraging their natural communication in favour of The English language which must become their second language. If we all agree that the children are our future…time we begin in earnest to teach them – through usage of the imagination – to vision the development of Guyana in their own context; to understand the meaning of national heritage…the need to be custodians…and to express their thoughts with facility in writing; writing in Guyanese Creolese.
It was my privilege to participate in the first ever Writing in Creolese course in an educational institution in Guyana.
dis lil piis biiloo gu shoo yuu wo mi miin; iz paart a mi plee: ‘ting-aling-aling skuulbel ring; di bush ton reen-fares’.
iz a liif –
iz a chrii –
iz a silviikolcha sprii
wii gat a nooshon dat a poorshon biilaangz tu wii –
iz wii reen-faares –
in aal di worl – pristiin es.
huu evu wuda ges dat
dii kola a gool kud bii griin?
(si wa wii miin)?
an di kola a wi driim iz griin!
di strogl a goowan!
The Guyanese Languages Unit 