 guyanese languages and identity guyanese languages and identity guyanese languages and identity webmaster mon 2262018 2108 a natural language is the archive where the experiences knowledge and beliefs of a community are stored the above words were uttered by the late spanish linguist fernando lazaro carreter it underscores the relationship between language and identity guyana s many languages are a testament to our rich culture language preservation needs to be one of our priorities as we move forward as individuals and as a people mashramani and international mother language day are reminders of that wednesday last marked the first time that international mother language day was celebrated in guyana the worldwide observance is held on february 21 every year since february 2000 with its goal being to promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism for us here in guyana it may be considered fortuitous that the occasion is so close to our mashramani a time when we celebrate our cultural diversity the event was held in the education lecture theatre of the university of guyana by the guyana languages unit working group and the faculty of education and humanities attendees were seated in a circle for the festivities creating the ambience of a village gathering throughout the event which lasted for over two hours the audience was able to listen to stories and songs told in arawak akawaio patamuna wapichan guyanese creole or creolese and english it was clearly evident very early on in the afternoon s programme that it would be remiss to categorise all the indigenous languages together into a group as such each of the languages spoken at the event had its own cadence and stress its own identity for some in attendance it was their first time hearing those languages from michael khan in his persona of ole man pappie who told a nancy story in creolese to aunty joan s story of one of the legends of the village of wakapoa to name but a few of the presenters the audience was invested to the end after the event and as preparations were getting underway for the graduation of the students of the creolese writing class the pepperpot magazine was able to speak to charlene wilkinson wilkinson a lecturer in english at the university of guyana was one of the event s organisers she explained that she had no intentions of letting the international mother language day pass by this year as it had in previous years with wilkinson receiving support from her colleagues dhaniswary jaganath dr tamir de lisser michael khan students of the creolese writing class and others the group was able to put together the event wilkinson acknowledged that the event was not as organised as it could have been she clarified that she had put out a call for participants but that in most cases participants came in at the last minute the event was thus not able to have a structured programme this though worked in its favour for she said there is danger in too much planning too her dream she told the pepperpot magazine is to have the event continue without a rigid structure in years to come if people get to understand each other s aesthetic then we will begin to learn to blend together which for me is what nationbuilding is about she said her firm belief is that we can create unity through the arts and through similar events language and identity are two concepts that are tied up in each other indeed wilkinson emphatically noted that they are inseparable indeed the talk she had prepared to deliver at the graduation later that evening was titled not a blade o grass not a word guh loss the talk s purpose was to show the relationship between environmental preservation and language preservation our languages especially the indigenous languages still carry the secrets and the knowledge and the wisdom of that relationship to the environment that the western culture has destroyed explained wilkinson she conceded that it is true that individual words from the languages can be learnt however she noted that these words come with the language s grammar its body language and the relationship of the human body with the earth itself because of that interconnectedness cutting an indigenous speaker off from their language also means severing that relationship to the earth there is danger in relegating creolese and the languages of the first peoples to the background to put english at the forefront saying english only can begin the process of killing a language indeed wilkinson noted that we have evidence of that right here in guyana berbice dutch she said had been thriving at the time guyana changed from dutch to british hands the british insisted on the speaking of solely english in schools which led to the eventual demise of berbice dutch even after the end of the colonial period and perhaps even today as wilkinson pointed out indigenous children are being admonished for speaking their mother tongue there is a fear she explained that speaking their languages will prevent them from being able to learn english however that is simply not the case it is more natural for us to take on many languages she emphasised one of the most important lessons from international mother language day 2018 is that all languages are valid and valuable it is true that english enables communication with our global community this though does invalidate the worth of creolese arawak akawaio arecuna carib macushi patamuna wai wai wapichan or warrau and that is worth remembering article adapted from  https guyanachroniclecom 20180225 guyaneselanguagesandidentity   international mother language day language and culture department 