Language and Identity Essay

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Language/Identity

Language and Identity

A large part of culture has to do with the language that people speak. It is a unifying concept that allows a group of people to identify one another as belonging to the same group. It does matter how the group is bounded, usually more by geographical bounds than ethnic of racial, it matters more how the person related to the world through the spoken word. This paper looks at the culture of the Caribbean, especially those people who were brought to the region as slaves from the African continent, and how they have maintained their identity through the commonality of language.

Many examples exist in literature that solidify the notion that language and identity are very closely intertwined. As a matter of fact, one author states "Language and identity are inseparable. The quest for identity is another prevalent concern in Caribbean literature" (Dance 5). Why is it such a "prevalent concern" as Dance puts it. The reason is that they were a people without a culture. Studies into the slave trade have shown that slavery was much more difficult for the person so ensnared the further South one went. This does not mean that they were any less a slave as the geography changed, but that the hot and humid conditions combined with the work conditions meant that death was much quicker and the people even more miserable.

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These former slaves, when they were freed on their respective islands, had thus lived on their island for many generations. They retained the sing-song method of speaking from their distant ancestors, but they had also developed a separate culture by creating a means of speaking which combined English, the islands and Africa that is most closely aligned with Afrikaaner in South Africa. The later writers and poets from these islands used the same language because the people identified with the language as much as the homes that they had forged.

This can be seen in some of the poetry that has survived from the early period of the islands and from more modern writers who are trying to maintain that voice. Narain writes that "performativity associated with national identity, with its more natural body language" (59) was used in early interpretive poems and dances. The people wanted to get away from the language that their former masters had used and develop their own sense. This continued up through the last century when poets like Louise Bennett-Coverly used the expressive language to put a humorous touch on a natural phenomenon.

The people of the island were moving to England because the jobs were more plentiful and they were allowed to live on the dole until they found something that suited….....

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