The Editor, Sir:

For weeks unending, the issue of the Patois Bible has been articulated in what seems like a series of circular arguments. The Letter of the Day in The Gleaner dated Wednesday July 9, titled, 'For whom does the Patois Bible toll?' by Charles Evans, and another article of the same date, titled 'Patois Student', both make vicious comments about the use of Patois in domains once reserved for English.

As a student of linguistics at the University of the West Indies, and a Pentecostal, I would like to offer blessings on the subject. Firstly, I believe that the Linguistics Department at the University has failed to allow the average Jamaican to understand the goals of the Bilingual Education Programme and any programme aimed at promoting Jamaican Creole (as we are religiously told to call it).

Significance

As highlighted, in many of the letters crucifying the move to convert the gospel, Jamaicans do not understand the significance of having a Bible in Patois and, by extension, preserving Jamaican Creole. Though very few Jamaicans do read the Bible, they, however, hold it in sacred regard and, as such, may never begin to fathom the benefits of this move. Many persons will never believe that such a move, though frightfully introduced, could give Jamaica an iconic marker - something else to make us unique, apart from crime and violence.

While I am all for the promotion of fi wi sitten (our language), I do believe that the timing was not given careful consideration. Maybe when crime is down 50 per cent we'll talk it over, weh yuh seh?

My final point serves to correct Mr Horace McFarlane, who probably wrote that piece in the light of blinding ignorance. It is no way, shape or form, the goal of the Linguistic Department, or any proponent of Jamaican Creole, to have children becoming monolingual speakers of Jamaican Creole. Instead, the aim is to help Jamaicans, on a whole, become competent bilingual speakers of both English and Jamaican Creole - using either one as is required by the context. Hence, your exaggerated analogy of a child, who writes a thesis or a paragraph in Patois, serves only to weaken your argument. However, a thesis in Patois does stimulate a few useful thoughts. Weh no kill, cure?

I am, etc.,

NORTY ANTOINE

damantoine@yahoo.com

Golden Valley,

Castleton P.O.,

St Mary