At a recent conference in Martinique, entitled "36 hours for the Caribbean", that focused on better means of cooperation between French West Indian departments and their independent neighbors, Martiniquan lawyer Alain Manville spoke about "Law, judicial practices and human traffic in the Caribbean." "France wishes to maintain her Caribbean departments in a state of indifference towards their natural environment," said Mr. Manville. "For Nearly 10 years one has witnessed a complicity between the Prefecture of Martinique and the French embassy of St. Lucia to deny visas to nationals from St. Lucia and Dominica and when these visas are accorded, the time taken is exorbitant and stay periods are reduced to a minimum," says Mr. Manville.
"As a West Indian student, I rather prided myself not only on my spoken English - as all West Indians, at least of my generation do - but also on my French accent, which was often commended. It so happened that at a French summer school in Nice in 1947, I translated `il ne pleuvait plus' orally as `the rain had held up' and was given a clear negative finger signal by my tutor. The next speaker said `it had stopped raining' and was told to continue. I was stung, but rather annoyed (with myself) when my English buddies, after class, sided with the tutor. My problem was that I had used standard Guianese (and East Caribbean) idiom, which was not standard English. The difference lay in Caribbean English usage. That was the beginning." "I can only marvel at the number of times I came near to believing the views of others - that the work would never be finished, "Dr.Allsopp said. "It is therefore in a spirit of great thanks to God and cautious optimism that I offer this dictionary to all Caribbeans." One finds words such as "touched" (soft or spoiling in parts); "force- ripe" (precocious, usually a child); "dead house" (the house where a deceased person lived); and "deal" (to practise witchcraft of the kind that involves trading living souls or dealing with the devil).
