Nekeisha Burchell | Permission to chat – language and identity in Jamaica today

A few weeks ago, people found themselves having a conversation that stretched far beyond our shores. It was a conversation about language, but it was also a conversation about identity, history, and cultural confidence.

What surprised me most was not the debate itself but where it travelled.

What began in the Parliament quickly reached audiences in Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, Ghana. and beyond. The UK Guardian and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) interviewed me about the issue and the broader questions it raised about language and belonging. Atlanta Black Star introduced the discussion to audiences across the African diaspora. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump highlighted it on social media while popular commentator Funky Dineva engaged the topic with his audience. Linguist Sophia Smith Galer examined it through the lens of language and identity.

Perhaps most fascinatingly, the conversation travelled back across the Atlantic itself. Ghanaian content creator Kobe Boujee shared the story with audiences in West Africa, sparking discussions about ancestry, cultural memory, and the enduring connections between Africa and the Caribbean.

What struck me was the diversity of the people paying attention. Linguists, academics, journalists, religious leaders, diaspora communities, and Africans and Afro-descended people from around the world found themselves engaging the same questions about language, identity, and nationhood.

Perhaps now that the conversation has travelled this far, we can begin to forget what sparked it in the first place: a few lines spoken in Jamaican during my maiden Sectoral Presentation as Opposition Spokesperson on Culture, Creative Industries, and Information.

The reaction revealed that Jamaicans are still wrestling with questions of identity, language, and nationhood.

For generations, Jamaicans have lived in two linguistic worlds. We learn English in school. We conduct official business in English. We draft laws in English. Yet we laugh, worship, argue, tell stories, and express some of our deepest emotions in Jamaican.

The question is not whether English has a place in Jamaica. Of course it does. English remains one of the world’s most important languages, and our children must continue to master it. The more interesting question is why the language most widely spoken by Jamaicans still struggles for acceptance in some of our most formal national spaces.

One of the most remarkable aspects of this discussion has been watching Jamaicans and West Africans discover cultural connections many had never fully appreciated before. Conversations emerged around Anansi. We say Tukuma. In parts of West Africa they say Ntukuma. People compared words, stories, and traditions that survived centuries of separation. For a brief moment, social media became a bridge across history. People were not merely debating language. They were rediscovering family, cultural cousins, and fragments of themselves.

Language is never merely vocabulary. It carries memory, history, and identity. Every Jamaican phrase contains traces of journeys that began long before Jamaica itself existed.

At home, what has encouraged me most is that the conversation has not remained confined to politics. Academics, educators, religious leaders, cultural practitioners, and ordinary Jamaicans have embraced it because they understand that language is about far more than words. It is about dignity. It is about belonging. It is about how a people see themselves.

That is why language matters.

CULTURE IS INFRASTRUCTURE

In my Sectoral Presentation, I argued that culture is not decoration. It is infrastructure. The response to this conversation has only strengthened that belief. Language is cultural infrastructure. It shapes identity, transmits history, builds belonging and connects generations. The reaction from Jamaicans at home and abroad demonstrated that questions of culture are never peripheral. They sit at the heart of how a people understand themselves, how they relate to each other, and how they present themselves to the world.

If democracy is about participation then how we communicate matters. Parliament does not exist for its own sake. It exists to serve the people. Yet, too often, legislation is debated and discussed in terms many ordinary Jamaicans find distant, technical, and inaccessible.

I increasingly see part of my role as helping to bridge that gap, serving as a cultural translator between Parliament and the people. That means taking the concerns, experiences, and language of ordinary Jamaicans into Parliament and taking the work of Parliament back to the people in a form they can understand, interrogate, and engage with. That does not mean abandoning standards or abandoning English. It means strengthening democracy by ensuring that people can fully participate in the national conversation.

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

For me, this conversation cannot end with a viral moment or a news cycle. It must lead to action. I have already engaged those involved in the review of Parliament’s Standing Orders regarding the need for explicit accommodation of Jamaican in parliamentary proceedings.

My objective is simple: no Jamaican should have to seek special permission to use the language of the Jamaican people in the Parliament of Jamaica. A people should not require permission to speak their own language in their own Legislature.

That conversation will continue through the Standing Orders Review process, and, if necessary, through a Private Members’ Motion. Beyond Parliament, I will continue engaging academics, linguists, educators, religious leaders, and cultural practitioners on the larger question of recognition, preservation, and development of Jamaican.

Because this conversation is bigger than Parliament. It is bigger than politics. It is, ultimately, about identity.

The events of the past few weeks have convinced me of something: Jamaicans are ready for this conversation. Not everyone agrees and not everyone will agree. But the depth, reach, and passion of the discussion demonstrate that questions of language, culture, and identity matter deeply to our people.

What began as a few lines spoken in Jamaican has now travelled to Africa, Europe, North America, and throughout the Caribbean. That tells me there is a hunger for deeper conversations about heritage, belonging, and cultural confidence.

My hope is that we seize this moment not merely to debate what happened but to think seriously about what comes next.

Nekeisha Burchell is the member of parliament for South St James and opposition spokesperson on culture, creative industries, and information. Send feedback to mp.southstjames@gmail.com.