Who Decided the Queen’s English Was the Only English?

“People from England speak proper English. Crystal clear. Caribbean people speak broken English.”

 

I paused for a moment after hearing those words.

Not because I hadn’t heard them before, but because they carried something far heavier than an opinion about language. They carried centuries of colonial thinking wrapped up in a single sentence.

It’s a belief many of us in the Caribbean have encountered at some point in our lives. Sometimes it’s said by visitors. Sometimes by employers. Sometimes by teachers. Sometimes, perhaps most painfully, by other Caribbean people.

The implication is always the same: English belongs to England, and the further away your voice sounds from it, the less correct it becomes.

But here’s the thing.

Caribbean people do not speak “broken English.”

We speak Caribbean Creoles. And there is a world of difference.

 

More Than One English

One of the greatest misconceptions about English is the idea that there is only one correct way to speak it.

There isn’t.

Travel across England and you’ll hear Geordie in Newcastle, Scouse in Liverpool, Yorkshire in Leeds, Brummie in Birmingham, Cockney in East London, Cornish in the southwest, and countless other regional varieties. Each has its own pronunciation, vocabulary and expressions. Some are so distinct that even other British people struggle to understand them.

Yet no one says a Geordie speaks “broken English.”

No one tells someone from Liverpool that they simply haven’t learned to speak properly.

Their way of speaking is recognised as a regional variety of English.

So why is it that when English develops in the Caribbean, it suddenly becomes “bad English”?

 

Language Carries History

The answer has very little to do with grammar and everything to do with history.

The Caribbean was shaped by colonisation, slavery and migration.

Enslaved Africans, speaking dozens of different languages, were forced together with English, French, Spanish and Dutch speakers. Communication became a necessity for survival. Over generations, entirely new language systems emerged, drawing vocabulary from European languages while developing their own grammar, rhythm and structure.

These weren’t failed attempts at speaking English.

They became languages and dialects in their own right.

Linguists call them Creoles.

That distinction matters.

Because describing Caribbean speech as “broken English” suggests that it is simply incorrect English.

It isn’t.

It follows its own rules.

Just as French follows different grammatical rules from Spanish, Caribbean Creoles follow different linguistic patterns from Standard English.

Different does not mean defective.

 

We Already Know How to Code-Switch

Most Caribbean people grow up navigating two worlds.

We know how to write a formal email.

We know how to answer interview questions in Standard English.

We know how to present at university, speak in meetings and communicate professionally.

Then we go home.

We laugh differently.

Our sentences soften.

Our expressions return.

Our grandparents’ sayings make perfect sense again.

We move effortlessly between Standard English and our local Creole, often without even realising we’re doing it.

Linguists call this code-switching.

Many of us simply call it everyday life.

Far from being evidence of poor English, it demonstrates linguistic flexibility. It means we understand our audience and adapt accordingly.

That’s not a weakness.

It’s a skill.

 

The Weight of “Proper”

Words matter.

When we describe one way of speaking as “proper,” we unintentionally describe everything else as improper.

When we call Caribbean speech “broken,” we imply that Caribbean people are somehow linguistically incomplete.

For generations, many of us have internalised that message.

We’ve apologised for our accents.

We’ve softened our pronunciation in interviews.

We’ve been told to “speak properly.”

Some of us have even corrected our parents or grandparents because we believed Standard English was somehow more intelligent.

But intelligence has never been measured by accent.

And language has never belonged to one country.

 

Our Voices Tell Our Story

Language is more than communication.

It carries memory.

It carries humour.

It carries grief, resilience and identity.

Some expressions simply cannot be translated without losing part of their meaning.

Anyone who has tried to explain a Caribbean saying to someone outside the region knows exactly what I mean.

Our speech reflects who we are.

It reflects centuries of survival, adaptation, creativity and community.

It tells the story of a people who created beauty despite unimaginable hardship.

That is not something to erase.

It’s something to honour.

 

Perhaps We’ve Been Asking the Wrong Question

Maybe the question was never whether Caribbean people speak “proper English.”

Maybe the real question is why we’ve been taught that sounding like England is the benchmark for speaking well.

Because here’s the truth.

English may have arrived in the Caribbean through colonisation.

But over generations, Caribbean people made it their own.

We shaped it.

We enriched it.

We gave it rhythm, colour, warmth and personality.

It became ours too.

So the next time someone says Caribbean people speak “broken English,” perhaps the gentlest response is this:

No.

We simply speak English differently.

And there is nothing broken about that.