Cultural Penetration

Many philosophers and scholars have ventured to define and debate cultural penetration and whereas we may agree with some of their arguments for or against, the fact is, cultural penetration has been with us from the beginning of humankind and will be with us forever.

Because the British were such vicious and determined colonialist, building for themselves an empire 'on which the sun would never set', in modern civilization, it's the English language which has prevailed worldwide.

We in Jamaica, having been enslaved then colonized by the British, did not escape. And while I am happy to have learnt that Interational language, I am still upset about the lengths they went to, to demonize and even demolish the language and culture of my African ancestors. 

Despite the brutality, some things prevailed somehow so when you listen to the Jamaican Patois, our language, you realize that many of its words and phrases were adopted from the Twi language, the mother tongue of over nine million Ashanti people. 

I am mulling on the issue of cultural penetration and how a tiny little island like Jamaica has managed  to have its culture adopted worldwide.

This trend of thought began when I saw and listened to the video below.

This video also demonstrates the ridiculousness of still having words commonly used in Jamaca and internationally, labeled 'bad words,' (supposedly indecent language) and the use still being punished in by a fine!

These are totally innocuous words which the British oppressors could not understand when their slaves/colonial subjects used them to express defiance, surprise, frustration etc. hence they banned them and established a 40 shilling fine each time they heard them.

Despite us being independent for 60 years and the shilling not even being in existence anymore, these so-called 'bad words' continue to attract a menial fines. 

It has always been my opinion that the law has never been repealed only because it gives the police another stupid and unnecessary reason to continue oppressing us, although no one uses them more than the police themselves!

In fact, I had the experience some years ago, of a policeman stopping me for a traffic offence and during our heated exchange, he told me some of his badwords and I told him some of mine, only to have my arrest include a charge of using 'indecent language!'

So, the language persecution continues.

This is amusing in some respects, for while we continue with that nonsense, through cultural penetration, our badwords have been adopted by many people throughout world and awarded much love. 

For example, it is impossible to walk around Georgetown in Guyana and not hear one of our favorite 'badwords' raass, in common use.

I recall once being in Dominica in the Eastern Caribbean too and hearing a slew of 'raass, bumboclaat, etc. Thinking a Jamaican was around, I went to introduce myself, only to find that through cultural penetration, the user had been an Antiguan. 

On another occasion I was sitting on a park bench in Colon, Panama, when I heard a teenager shouting  a bunch of  'raass, bumboclaat' etc. on top of his voice. When I approached him, I discovered to my great amusement that he spoke no English, no Patois but was fluent in our 'badwords' which he learnt from his long-dead grandfather who had worked on the Panama Canal and had settled there when the project was completed.

So yes, thanks to cultural penetration, I could write pages on how our language, food and culture took wings long ago.

Let me instead address my favorite term; 'bumbo/bumboclaat ' which is still deemed a 'badword' in Jamaica.

Some years ago, when my grandson attended St. Peter and Paul Preparatory School in Jamaica, I heard him saying 'bumbo'. As it was deemed a 'big people word' in my house, I admonished him gently, only for him to show me the book he was reading entitled "Bumbo the Elephant'".

Horrified, but suspecting it was a misprint, since elephants were often called Dumbo or Jumbo, I approached his teacher the next day to demand that the book be withdrawn. She however insisted that  she had no authority to do so, as books were provided by the Ministry of Education.😓

Long story short, since then, the sanitized bumbo/bumboclaat  has become my favorite expression whenever I am astonished, hurt, impressed, unnerved, stupefied, dumfounded etc!

Thanks to the video above, I have now learnt that bumboclaat has taken on new meanings, in that it has been adopted as the name for a dog and the new definition declared as; ETERNAL PEACE.😅😅😅😅

I like this new trend.

All power to cultural penetration.

https://youtu.be/LYfi5487FEk