Fight fi di right fi speak! Linguistic Citizenship as Revolution in 21st century Jamaican Classrooms

Linguistic citizenship is an important framework when considering how to empower languages and their speech com-munities. While linguistic citizenship provides a comprehensive view of how to protect and maintain minority languages, there are still places that rely on superficial perspectives to navigate issues within linguistic landscapes. An example of this is within the Caribbean. A mixture of islands in the Caribbean Seaand coastal areas of South and Central America, the Caribbean is rich inlinguistic diversity and history. With its legacies of contact, colonialism, and liberation,an explo-ration of the Caribbean linguistic landscape is warranted. One reoccurring theme in the Caribbean is revolution —a theme demonstrated throughout the region,from different liberation struggles to the decolonization of Caribbean coun-tries. How does this relate to linguistic citizenship? This case study will invite readers to think about revolution in a the-oretical and linguistic context. Can revolution exist in Caribbean spaces through linguistic citizenship? This essay will explore Jamaica’s 2001 Language Educational Policy draft on Standard Jamaican English (SJE) and Jamaican Creole (JC), arguing for linguistic citizenship as a necessary revolution in Jamaican classrooms. This essay will highlight Ja-maica’s historical and socio-cultural background, its unique language situation, Jamaica’s transition from language ide-ology to policy, implications on current language policies within classroom dynamics, and finally,a concluding dialogue as to how Jamaica can move forward in balancing SJE and JC in the classroom.