In 50 years, chances are, a typical Bajan won't look nor speak like anyone you know.

With the ever-changing demographic and ethnographic landscape, esteemed writer and essayist George Lamming considers this a stark reality of which locals should be conscious.

The local literary community had the occasion to hear one of the region's most celebrated and honoured authors deliver an engaging address, punctuated by moments of humorous anecdotes and entitled Language And The Politics of Ethnicity
on Monday night in the Walcott-Warner Theatre of The Errol Barrow Centre For Creative Imagination at the University of the
West Indies.

This topic, he considered, was appropriate in light of social and cultural changes he had observed over the last eight decades.

"I have the feeling that in another 50 years the Barbados population will have lost the characteristic of homogeneity that it had 50 years ago.

". . . You are going to see a landscape of faces and hear a landscape of voices quite different from what we experience today."

The understanding of this diversity will then become fundamental for successful, productive communication across racial, cultural or ethnic divides.

"In any consideration
of the role of language in the politics of ethnicity that is the diaspora culture, it is always prudent to bear in mind that the content or location from which you speak is the context which gives meaning to every question you ask," Lammin said.

Known for his shock-white afro, as much as for his novels, essays and strong black Marxist politics, Lamming emphasised the significance of language in the shaping of identity.

"Language is essentially a very political tool – and the term political is used here to define the dynamics of people's cultural evolution; the way we organise our social lives together and; the power relations which this involves," he stated.

He considered any conflicts arising on whether vernaculars should be used in a particular situation, is less about language, per se, and more about power.

"It's about the politics
of cultural stratification and the transitional period of resistance to that hierarchical authority which makes a clear distinction between the language of negotiation used for church, school, etcetera, and the language of action, of the market place, the school yard and the playing field.

"The role of the writers and the poets in that society is to disturb the neat divisions of language appropriateness put
in place by the system," he said.

The evening's lecture was part of the celebrations of Humanities Week
at the University
of the West Indies.