Occam’s razor is a rule of thumb (heuristic) that guides philosophers and scientists alike.   Essentially, the rule states that when two competing theories make the same prediction the simpler one is better.  Isaac Newton elegantly captured the concept when he stated, “We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances. Therefore, to the same natural effects we must, so far as possible, assign the same causes.”  By making reference to the description provided by Isaac Newton, I may well be violating Occam’s razor.  Nonetheless, I am persuaded that by so doing I have also provided an example to help explain the Razor.
Occam’s razor supports Peter Josie who recently wrote (The Voice of 13th June 2009) that while we should embrace simplicity we should shun being simplistic.  A detailed analysis of Occam’s razor will reveal that a solution that does not deal with all aspects of the phenomena under consideration may be considered simplistic.  It follows, that a simple explanation that does not explain the phenomena should not hold sway over one that does.  I am, therefore, persuaded by Mr. Josie observation that, “simplicity and humility are not the same as thinking and acting simplistically.”  In this commentary, I posit that Kwéyòl is simple, meets our need to communicate, and should be embraced as an integral part of the cultural, intellectual and artistic artefacts that should make us proud.
It appears that there is a natural tendency for speakers to truncate words with three syllables or more when these words are used frequently.  Here are a few examples that demonstrate that frugality: Perambulator became pram;   aeroplane became plane; motorcar became car, omnibus became bus and bicycle became bike.  Incidentally all these are examples of items that move us around.  Look at the appliances in the home and you will find a few examples of these to include: phone, TV, and fridge.   The technique of replacing long words with shorter versions of the word also occurs in other languages; for example in Spanish (note that some of the examples also exist in English): foto for fotografia; bici for bicicleta; porfa for por favour and cafe for cafeteria.  Those of you who are familiar with French will be aware that the language has shorter words for the French words for television, refrigerator and
apartment.  I would be extremely surprised if other languages like German, Portuguese Italian and Dutch did not have similar contractions.
Kwéyòl, to my knowledge has no similar contractions (except those that came directly from English e.g. “fridge”).  On account of that, the language avoids having two words for the same concept.  That is entirely consistent with the principle enshrined in Occam’s razor.  In addition, the majority of the words used in Kwéyòl have at most two syllables and few Kwéyòl words have more than three syllables (I can think of only one: malédisyon).   Kwéyòl has an abundance of monosyllabic and duo-syllabic words while English, French and Spanish must struggle, through the use of contractions, to create such words from longer ones on a case by case basis.  If simple is beautiful, Kwéyòl nudges ahead of English.
I now compare the technique used by Kwéyòl and English to recognize grammar and I start with plurality.  English speakers must struggle through a series of rules to determine how to show the plural of various words.  For example, some words that ends with the letter “y” like baby becomes babies while donkeys is the plural of donkey.  The plural of words house and mouse differ by much more than the first letter of each word.  I will not continue with the myriad of examples.  I need only emphasize two things: a) In English there are various ways of marking a word as plural and b) The rules don’t seem to always hold.  In Kwéyòl, to show that we are referring to more than one, we simple add the word sé before the noun under consideration.  Bef-la ka mangé informs that one cow is eating but: Sé bef-la ka mangé shows that more than one cow is eating.
A study of the approached adopted by each language, Kwéyòl and English, to indicate tense will also prove to be instructive.  Again we find that English utilizes a myriad of methods.  This includes adding the letter “d”, using apparently inconsistent rules (rake – raked; make – made; take took) using a seemingly unrelated word (go - went).   In Kwéyòl one marker “té” is used to show the past tense;   Mwen té fè ( I made); Mwen té pwan ( I took).   If simple is proficiency, Kwéyòl surges further ahead of English. There are some who decry Kwéyòl on the grounds that it legitimizes some inelegant verbal structures.  One example is the sentence: Tombé mwen tombé (Fall I fall).  I concede that no additional information is conveyed when the first “tombé” is added and that the frugal “Mwen tombé” would do just as well.
However, English is replete with so much redundancy that this instance of Kwéyòl’s inelegance diminishes to insignificance.  Shortly, I will provide a few examples of redundant structures that permeate English and that do not encumber Kwéyòl.
Subject verb agreement is deemed to be an important construct in English.  Is it necessary to keep that agreement?  I contend that a Kwéyòl speaker who declares “Sé mouton-a ka mangé” has already made it abundantly clear that there are more than one sheep eating.   Of course, the word sheep is both singular and plural and without the plural verb (are) a person would have no way of knowing whether the speaker was making reference to more than one sheep.  That’s my point!  Kwéyòl does not run into that difficulty because the word “sé” is always used to mark plurality so there is no need to have a “backup” to show plurality.  In this situation Occam’s razor is definitive; a system that uses one mechanism to complete a task is superior to one that must use two. The use of gendered pronoun provides another example of the redundancy that pervades English.
One must ask: What is gained by using a gender specific pronoun when it should be clear from the context whether the person to whom the pronoun refers is masculine or feminine?    In any event, gender is a construct of society which some argue is unnecessary.  Kwéyòl uses the generic “i” (pronounced like the English letter “e”) to refer to all things of each gender thereby blurring the importance of gender (incidentally, efforts to erase gender have been attempted in the academic community for the last forty or so years with limited success).   If reduced repetition is efficiency then Kwéyòl appears to be miles ahead of English.
Lloyd Best argued that it is not likely that Caribbean people will appreciate home grown relics because, “The only   people and leaders, by the fact of culture and tradition, who enjoyed the legitimacy to open the door to subversion, to creativity and to theoretical and philosophical innovation as a basis for praxis, were precisely those luminaries who dazzling successes on the coloniser’s ground had long since served to staunch their intuition, curb their imagination, cut them off from their own obeisance, distort their estimates both of what was necessary and what was possible for us.”  It seems to me that to be consistent with Occam’s razor, Best could have said this more simply without being simplistic – nonetheless the point is made.
Least this commentary is misinterpreted let me state explicitly: I am not advocating that Kwéyòl should replace English in St. Lucia.  I am, however, making the point that we should see the magnificence that is Kwéyòl.

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