Sociolinguistic Research on Attitudes and Use of

Creole, English and Spanish Languages to Support

the Departmental Language Policy

By ZORAIDA FIQUIARE ESCALONA B.A in Bilingual Education in Project

Management

This paper is about the research done on the Social and Linguistic
situation of the three languages (Creole, Spanish, and English) in contact on
the Archipelago of San Andres, Old Providence and Santa Catalina.
In the year 2011, the government of San Andres began to work on a
Language Policy for the entire Archipelago. With the support of the National
University, INFOTEP (a post-secondary technological institute) and other
institutions, they began a research Project called the Language Policy of the
archipelago of San Andres, Old Providence and Santa Catalina.
In spite of the neglect of many governmental officials, this Project began in
2011 and ended with a final report in 2013.
It all began with the planning of research activities. We started by receiving
training courses using a Methodological guide on how to research for specific
information.
I was fairly new to work on this type of research so I started by translating to
Creole the questions that would be asked at each Meeting held for the
purpose of approaching the different communities.
We had meetings with people from the community, including elders, leaders,
women, younger children. In these meetings we asked questions, and
opened a space for discussion. We taped these discussions and then
transcribed the information obtained for further studies.
We studied several facts, such as:
FACT 1 The intergenerational transmission of the three Languages.
How di nyuu ginarieshan laan di Langwij? (pikniny an yong pipl)
What was our interest?
Wid dis kweschan: da how di langwij de paas dong tu di nyuu ginarieshan?
das wai di impuortant fi dem explien how yo laan di langwij, if yo laan ih
huom chruu yo granpierans, yo pupa, yo muma or enibady fahn di komunity,
da skuul or wid wan fren, or if dis no de hapm, explien wai di no de hapm.
FACT 2 Numbers of speakers in comparison with the whole population.
Huu da di pipl dem ina di komunity weh taak di Langwij?
Ya so wi hafi ansa, weh ginarieshan taak di langwij, if di granpierans, pierans,
pikniny or aal di pipl dem fahn di komunity stil taak ih. Yo hafi explien klierly
weh iej a pipl (granpierans, pierans, pikniny) yuuz di Langwij fi komunikate.
FACT 3 What are the changes in the use of the languages?
Weh an wen wii taak wi langwij?

Wid dis kweschan wi waah nuo weh an wen di pipl dem fahn dih komunity
taak Creole, fi nuo how an wid huu dem taak ih, or if dem riplies ih fi Spanish
or English.
Wid dis kweschan wih hafi ansa if dem yuuz fiwi langwij huom, da skuul, ina
dem diely laif, wid di aatarity dem, ina miitin, or enywie els.
FACT 4 We wanted to find out: How important the Languages were in the
Communication system?
Pipl taak truu internet, fuon, da skuul, da work, ina dem mada tong?
Eksplinieshan: wid dis kweschan wi waah nuo if wen dem yuuz fuon/internet
dem yuuz wi mada tong.
FACT 5 An immediate task was to know what materials were on the island in
Creole and what we could find in other creole speaking countries such as
Jamaica.
Wi gat ritn matiiryal ina Creole Langwij?
Eksplinieshan: wid dis kweschan wi waah nuo weh kaina matiiryal wi gat ina
creole; laik buk, stuoriz, vidios, eny ada matiiryal, an den ditormin, weh kain
ah matiiryal wi deh yuuz ina edukieshan. Dis da somting wih hafi gat klier if
wi gat matiiryal or wi no gat non.
FACT 6 The attitude of the community members.
Fiwi Langwij impuortant fi wi komunity?
Eksplinieshan: wid dis kweschan wi waah nuo weh di langwij miin fi wih
komunity. Di gud an di bad bihievia wid dih langwij, dat disaid if wi kiip di
langwij.
Dis kweschan wahn mek wi andastan how strang wi langwij an wah mek ih
strang or if ih wiik wahn mek ih wiik.
FACT 7 ACTION PLAN
Weh wi wan du ina di lang, miidyum an shaat taim fi strentn di nietiv langwij?
Fi get up dis informieshan wi hafi si weh okieshan dem de propuoz fi kiip wi
langwij laiv. Dis informieshan wi tek ih up chuu diely taak ina di komunity,
skuul an huom.

The main task I had was to prepare Language explanations and data in
Creole that were used for the focus groups. The focus groups are ones
through which we gathered voices and data to recommend a Language
policy for the Department. The use of the three languages was a must in
these scenarios.
The other task was to determine the Corpus of the Creole Language
Publications. The idea here was to make an inventory of what has been
produced in English based Creole Languages, indicating where these
products are from: Jamaica, Nicaragua, Belize It included: dictionaries,
story books, text books, literature, books of the Bible, etc. And, whether it
was possible to find samples of what has been published by editing houses,
or others. Some had been a result of individual efforts, others institutional.
My role in this Project was complemented by a number of other studies
carried out by other experts and local institutions. The result of the research
were published by the Language Policy Commission in the form of a final
document and presented to the local government for their approval and
implementation. University
Unfortunately, the Final Report did not take into account the work done by
the Christian University Corporation on the proposed orthography writing for
Creole and material produced for pre-school and first grade in Creole and
English denominated Project 2000. Neither did it take into account
research findings regarding community and youth opinions favorable to
reading and writing in Creole.

Posted by International Centre for Caribbean Language Research