"Gappling with Guyana"

2/5 of Bastard Tongues. I must say I enjoyed the second and third chapter not only because it was focus on Guyana but because the author explain in-dept of his experience and examination on Guyanese or Creoles. I admire the author's ability to captivate my attention as the reader. In addition, there were no restriction on how he told his story, I was able to visualize every single detail that was given.

For instance, the author and a few friends went to the bar and after a couple of drinks they realized they had to use the restroom, being that the bar bathroom was disgusting, they decided to head to the grass. As they handled their business a black laborer drove by and shouted. "Look a red man a piss a road corner"!(DB 18). This statement was made by a Guyanese. You learn a lot about both Guyanese society and its language from that one sentence.

           The expression "red man" according to the author refers to Native Americans in America. On the other hand in Guyana and the Caribbean generally their is only three categories that is black, white and red. Basically anything between " stove top black and pillow white is considered to be red (DB18).

To explain the statement "look a red man a piss a road corner"; firstly, the road corner does not mean literally the corner of the road because the author and his friends were in the grass no where near a road. The coner of the road means the side of the road instead. The guyanese way of communicating simply shows that language has change and has transform into different dialects, for example Guyanese just speak broken English.