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.