Jamaican Creole is not English?
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‘It’s broken English’: MP’s attempt to speak Jamaican in parliament sparks language row
Parliamentary rule that only English is allowed has reignited debate about language, legitimacy and postcolonial identity
Natricia Duncan and Anthony Lugg in Kingston, The Guardian (5/21/26)
In this explosive exchange, you can hear the dramatic shift from "Patwa" (patois) to standard English in a 1:17 video included in The Guardian article.
When the Jamaican MP Nekeisha Burchell stood up to give her maiden speech, she was keenly aware of how much her country’s parliament mirrored the Westminster version thousands of miles away in London.
As in the UK, the session on 12 May had started with the arrival of the ceremonial mace – a 1.7-metre ornamented silver staff representing the British monarch’s authority over parliament – which now rested on a table between the government and the opposition. Despite the heat outside, debate was presided over by the speaker dressed in a ceremonial robe.
I witnessed a similar ceremony at the opening of an international congress of orientalists in Toronto about a quarter of a century ago.
Burchell, the opposition spokesperson for culture, creative industries and information, approached the microphone and began to speak. “Madam speaka, mi git up dis afta noon fi mek mi fuss sectoral speech, pan me portfolio …” (VHM: emphasis added)
The speaker, Juliet Holness, immediately cut her off. “Hold on, hold on, hold on! Standing orders, and I think you are fully aware,” said Holness, who is the wife of Jamaica’s prime minister.
The regulation to which Holness referred was the rule that only English – and certainly not Jamaican – is allowed in parliament. “If I have to stop you again during your presentation, you will not get any additional time,” Holness told Burchell as parliament erupted into protest, with someone chiding “broken English”.
There are vast implications to Burchell's use of Jamaican in the National parliament. It is similar to using Taiwanese in the ROC national parliament. Try it and see what happens.
Burchell had ignited an explosive debate across the country and beyond about the enduring legacy of British colonialism and whether robes, prayers for the British monarch and the “king’s English” are still right for Jamaica, more than 60 years after it gained independence.
Burchell continued her speech in standard English. “Madam speaker, perhaps I should abandon that attempt to use our local language because I have been reminded of the linguistic conventions of this honourable house,” she said.
There are many more nuances and complications to what happened in the Jamaican parliament on May 12 when Nekeisha Burchell spoke in Jamaican rather than in standard English. Burchell said her intention was not to disrespect parliament or cause disorder.
“We have gotten comfortable with keeping things like the prayer we say before parliament starts every single week … We’re saying these words that we don’t understand. We’re still wearing these wigs and these robes in a hot climate like Jamaica, because we are still keeping these models.”
Burchell said her intervention was not meant to be “anti-British” or “anti-English” but was more about Jamaica’s cultural confidence.
“Jamaica’s language has become one of the most globally recognisable cultural expressions to come out of the Caribbean. Through reggae, dancehall, athletics, popular culture, people across the world recognise the rhythm, energy, boldness, humour [and] the emotional texture of our language. And I think that’s part of why this conversation resonated internationally,” she said.
It's a question of pride in one's culture and mother tongue.
Selected readings
- "David Starkey on rioting and Jamaican language" (8/14/11)
- "Starkey ravings" (8/16/11)
- "Botty man" (9/14/09)
- "No creoles?" (9/4/17)
[From an old friend]
Chips Mackinolty said,
May 24, 2026 @ 2:43 am
Creole? Patwa? Broken English?
Certainly in northern and Central Australia so-called "Broken English" is widely spoken by Aboriginal people … more often than not referred to as Kriol (the more effective spelling of Creole, see above).
Kriol links across many different Aboriginal languages and is taught in schools in the wider Katherine region.
And then of course was the fabulous Ngukurr-based band, Broken English who sang in Kriol and was described as the "best heavy metal-band in there country".
https://www.thenorthernmyth.com/2016/02/23/broken-english-best-heavy-metal-band-in-the-country/
Kriol has been spoken in the Australian and Northern Territory parliaments!
Philip Taylor said,
May 24, 2026 @ 4:32 am
Well, I've "see[n] above", Chips, but I am still no wiser as to why "Kriol [is the] (the more effective spelling of Creole, see above)" …
DJL said,
May 24, 2026 @ 6:55 am
Surely, in the context of a parliament, it should be about talking in the language or variety most people can understand – you know, to ease communication. She’s not less Jamaican for speaking in the most widely understood variety of English, after all, and one can express pride in one’s culture and mother tongue in many other contexts.
Chips Mackinolty said,
May 24, 2026 @ 7:34 am
@Philip Taylor. Because orthography! In Kriol the "hard C" is pronounced K … there is no use for the letter C , let alone a silent "e" at the end of the word!
Michael Watts said,
May 24, 2026 @ 9:02 am
No? There is zero value in the Jamaican parliament conducting its affairs for the benefit of Australians. The relevant metric would be what people in Jamaica understand. Your approach would have every parliament in Europe conducting business in some variety of Latin.
Uly said,
May 24, 2026 @ 9:16 am
The e at the end of the word indicates that the o is pronounced as in boat, rather than as in bot.
Also, just to make sure we are all on the same page here, Kriol as spoken in Australia is not the same language as Creole as spoken in Jamaica, even if their names sound the same and they have one shared substrate language (English).
Uly said,
May 24, 2026 @ 9:17 am
> Surely, in the context of a parliament, it should be about talking in the language or variety most people can understand – you know, to ease communication. She’s not less Jamaican for speaking in the most widely understood variety of English, after all, and one can express pride in one’s culture and mother tongue in many other contexts.
Which is the variety that most *Jamaicans* can understand from childhood onward? (Legitimately I don't know.)
DJL said,
May 24, 2026 @ 10:24 am
My approach would not have every parliament in Europe conducting business in Latin – no idea where you get that from. My point, rather, was that in the Spanish Parliament, for instance, it makes little sense for someone to speak in Basque or Catalan, given that most parliamentarians would not understand those languages (fully) and Spanish happens to be the mother tongue of Basque/Catalans too, and the common language in that Parliament.
As I understand it, Standard Jamaican English is the common language employed in schooling in Jamaica, in addition to being the official language in government, whilst Patois is the most common spoken language and exhibits some diversity in the island. In this sense, Standard Jamaican English would be the best option to ease communication among parliamentarians, which was my point all along.
cervantes said,
May 24, 2026 @ 10:52 am
In case you've never seen the movie The Harder They Come, when it begins it has English subtitles. When I first saw it I asked myself, "What language are they speaking?" Then, after maybe 20 minutes, I realized they were speaking English and I could understand it. At about that point, they stopped the subtitles.
Philip Taylor said,
May 24, 2026 @ 11:13 am
Well, Chips, the LPD confirms my belief that "creole" is pronounced /ˈkriː əʊl/, but faced with your neologism "kriol" I would tend to render that as /ˈkrɪ ɒl/. So less effective, rather than more, IMHO.
cervantes said,
May 24, 2026 @ 11:22 am
Of course various languages have their own word for English Creole. In Haiti it's Kreyol and IIRC in Cabo Verde it's Kriolu.
cervantes said,
May 24, 2026 @ 11:23 am
Of course I meant to write "the English word Creole." You should have a comment editing function. Haitian Kreyol is derived from French, of course, and Kriolu from Portuguese.
cliff arroyo said,
May 24, 2026 @ 11:51 am
"in the Spanish Parliament, for instance, it makes little sense for someone to speak in Basque or Catalan"
Maybe not the best example…
https://apnews.com/article/spain-catalan-basque-galician-languages-parliament-3209def249eabbb3a446a9de55cb3479
DJL said,
May 24, 2026 @ 2:08 pm
It is the best example, Arroyo, and I chose it on purpose because I know it well. Offering simultaneous translation to Spanish parliamentarians even though everyone actually speaks the same language is absurd (and an unjustifiable cost). And it’s the result of the party in government having to accommodate the demands of small nationalist parties to get the necessary votes to stay afloat.
cliff arroyo said,
May 24, 2026 @ 2:31 pm
"though everyone actually speaks the same language"
"small nationalist parties "
So all Jamaicans are equally fluent in 'standard' Jamaican English'? Surely one of the jobs of parliament is to be accessible to as many citizens as possible. I would think use of Jamaican rather than the colonial language would help that and make the government more relatable to the citizenry.
Spanish probably sounded like garbled Latin at one point. Literary and/or national languages have to start somewhere.
What do you think about the BBCs West African Pidgin service?
https://www.bbc.com/pidgin
DJL said,
May 24, 2026 @ 2:47 pm
As I said before, it is my understanding – someone can correct me – that Standard Jamaican English is the language of instruction at school, and also the official in parliament, commerce, etc. So, I do assume that every parliamentarian in Jamaica speaks and understands this variety, and so far I have only focused on the ease of communication within a parliament – that is, among parliamentarians.
I also don't think referring to English as a colonial language is particularly useful or achieves much in this case – English is the language of Jamaican people too by now, in addition to Patois (which is English-based). And the same goes for the Basque and Catalans: Spanish is their language too, in addition to others.
The BBC service looks good, I have nothing against such efforts, on the contrary (Sardinian needs something similar, to mention an example closer to home).
My point was merely about communication situations where people share a language but decide to use another language to make a point.
cliff arroyo said,
May 24, 2026 @ 2:58 pm
" where people share a language but decide to use another language to make a point."
It's my understanding that most Jamaicans share two languages, since AFAICT none of the criticism in Jamaica was about anyone concerned not understanding the language Burchell was using. In that cae using the one with less prestige in Parliament is a point that might need to be made and I hope it gets made again.
Jonathan Smith said,
May 24, 2026 @ 7:34 pm
Indeed similar (more to the Spain situation) happens in Taiwan regularly, e.g. recently
https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2026/01/18/2003850803
It really depends what one means by "make sense." From one POV it "makes sense" that we work efficiently. From another POV it "makes sense" that you respect me and I am free. Context is that there was a past in which I was not respected/free but now I have some modest amount of leverage to make such stipulations. Of course the former would-be instrumentalists just insist that this context doesn't matter. "Let us just work efficiently!"
Thomas said,
May 25, 2026 @ 3:22 am
@DJL:
“Spanish happens to be the mother tongue of Basque/Catalans”
But that does not make sense, does it. If Basque is your native language then Spanish is not.
ajay said,
May 25, 2026 @ 4:05 am
Certainly in northern and Central Australia so-called "Broken English" is widely spoken by Aboriginal people … more often than not referred to as Kriol (the more effective spelling of Creole, see above).
"More effective" is probably the wrong phrase to use. "Creole" is an English common noun meaning a fully-formed language derived from one or more parent languages.
So Kriol is a creole, as is Jamaican Creole. The fact that Kriol is spelled "Kriol" does not mean that it is wrong to spell "creole" as "creole" or indeed to spell "Creole" as "Creole".
cliff arroyo said,
May 25, 2026 @ 7:36 am
"If Basque is your native language then Spanish is not"
I assume the idea is that there are very few adult monolingual Basque or Catalan speakers. Virtually all adults also are fluent in Spanish.
Philip Taylor said,
May 25, 2026 @ 7:44 am
I know of at least two counter-examples to your concluding statement, Cliff, the two in question being fluent Catalan speakers who are much poorer at Castilian. This does not, of course, suggest that most Catalan-speaking adults are not also fluent in Castilian, but my understanding is that many prefer to speak Catalan as they feel "less comfortable" in Castilian.
cliff arroyo said,
May 25, 2026 @ 8:04 am
"many prefer to speak Catalan as they feel "less comfortable" in Castilian"
I know someone like that too (though I suspect the "less comfortable" part is at least partly politically motivated.
Again, I have no idea wht DJL intended, but I've also seen the usage "native language" or "mother tongue" to refer not to the language a person actually acquired first but to the official language of the polity they are born into.
DJL said,
May 25, 2026 @ 10:30 am
The vast majority of Catalans are bilingual; some are Catalan-dominant, some Spanish-dominant, and some are pretty balanced, but all of them would be regarded as native speakers of both Spanish and Catalan (Catalans actually score higher on Spanish tests in school compared to the rest of Spain). The Basque are all native Spanish speakers and some speak Basque. In neither case are there really any monolingual speakers of Basque or Catalan anymore (though proficiency certainly varies).
Wally said,
May 26, 2026 @ 12:13 am
My memory of the move The Harder They Come, which ChatGPT kind of confirms, from you know half a century ago, is that I saw three versions of it. The unadulterated version which no, you couldn’t understand but the music was great and was many people’s introduction to Jamaican music. The subtitled version where the subtitles went thru the whole movie. And a dubbed version where it was dubbed into an English I had no trouble with.
MN said,
May 26, 2026 @ 5:56 am
To make a point that is probably obvious to most, but should be made explicit. Whatever you think would be wise, it's up to the Jamaican parliament to decide which language(s) it wishes to conduct its business it, and up to the people of Jamaica to choose the parliamentarians making the decision. If the MP violated the rules of order, the Parliament will deal with that by its own rules — and either reprimand her, or refrain from doing so. All of this — the apparently provocative address, the possible reprimand, etc. — are normal parts of democratic will-formation.
As to what is wise, there is certainly value to use a language, which not only the vast majority of constituents are competent in, but which is especially grounded in their daily lives. Even strong regional variation in language varieties is no hindrance to conducting parliamentary affairs. This is proved by the legislative bodies of Switzerland and Norway, where members usually speak their regional varieties, and are understood without issue by other member who could never _produce_ the varieties in question. One issue might be the creation of records. Ideally, parliament sessions should not only be comprehensible to all participants, and to the constituents who have a chance to listen to them. They should be recorded in writing in a way that is accessible to as many constituents as possible, and likely to be accessible to _posterity_ for as long as possible. Court decisions in 200 or 300 years may draw on parliamentary records as supplementary material for interpreting law. I don't know if there are established standards for recording Creole in Jamaica, but I expect this problem is routinely encountered in courts etc…
Chas Belov said,
May 28, 2026 @ 10:27 pm
Thinking about courts and how supposedly the ability to write colloquial Cantonese at least partially came from the need to transcribe court testimony in Hong Kong.
Peter Taylor said,
May 31, 2026 @ 1:25 am
DJL wrote:
That only really holds if you think that the purpose of speaking in the Congreso is to be understood by the other diputados. Maybe that was once the purpose, but nowadays I think that most speeches and interventions are at least as much for the purpose of winning/maintaining favour with your voters, via clips which you yourself post on social media or which regional TV stations show in the news. The real communication between politicians takes place in back rooms.
Philip Taylor said,
May 31, 2026 @ 2:27 am
Sadly, I fear, only too true, Peter.