Our educators don’t seem to understand that as long as we tell children that they ‘chat bad’ when they use their mother tongue, we are planting the seeds of low self-esteem. And we will reap badness.

'How is it that I, a Jamaican who has lived all my life on the island, do not sound like one?' This realisation dawned when I was mistaken, by both several compatriots, as well as by lovers of Jamaica ...

When groups of people who speak different languages come together, they sometimes inadvertently create a new one, combining bits of each into something everyone can use to communicate easily.