When English teacher Faith Linton first proposed translating the Bible into Jamaica's patois tongue in the late 1950s, most people who heard the idea shook their heads.
Some on the deeply Christian island believed it was sacrilegious. Others opposed it because the unique mixture of English and West African languages was widely disdained by the elites as a coarse linguistic stepchild to English, which is the only official language in this former British colony.
"There was shock at the mere suggestion," said Linton, now 81, a longtime board member of the Bible Society of the West Indies. "People were deeply ashamed of their mother tongue. It was always associated with illiteracy and social deprivation."...
David Parsons | 9/25/2013
