Joel Julien

joel.julien@guardian.co.tt

There are on­ly two sea­sons in Trinidad and To­ba­go– rainy and dry.

There­fore, it is in­cor­rect to de­scribe the two-month school va­ca­tion pe­ri­od we are cur­rent­ly ex­pe­ri­enc­ing as “sum­mer.”

And this has been a bug bear of sorts for many.

But what can be said as an al­ter­na­tive?

Well, en­ter the term “JA­VA.”

But what is it?

“We found a short­er way of us­ing this term Ju­ly/Au­gust va­ca­tion in­stead of say­ing sum­mer and it was JA­VA. J for Ju­ly, A for Au­gust and Va­ca­tion is ab­bre­vi­at­ed or short­ened to VA giv­ing JA­VA,” Dion Car­ring­ton told Guardian Me­dia Ltd in an in­ter­view us­ing Teams yes­ter­day.

Car­ring­ton, 25, said he and his class­mates came up with the term when they were in form two at Trin­i­ty Col­lege, Mo­ka.

His fa­ther was the mo­ti­va­tion be­hind them find­ing the cre­ative term.

“This is some­thing to be quite hon­est my friends and I have been say­ing for over a decade now, it start­ed be­cause in my house­hold my dad was a stick­ler for the cor­rect us­age of the lan­guage and ter­mi­nol­o­gy so there was no say­ing sum­mer at home,” Car­ring­ton said with a laugh.

“We ei­ther had to say Ju­ly/Au­gust va­ca­tion or find an­oth­er way of say­ing it,” he said.

And be­cause the term Ju­ly/Au­gust va­ca­tion was too long-wind­ed the friends came up with this four-let­ter al­ter­na­tive.

“We just start­ed us­ing it amongst our­selves,” Car­ring­ton said.

But then on Ju­ly 24, 2018 a tweet from Car­ring­ton’s friend Christo­pher Col­lens changed every­thing.

“Pe­ti­tion to call sum­mer in the Caribbean JA­VA (Ju­ly/Au­gust Va­ca­tion),” Col­lens tweet­ed.

“That just took it to a whole oth­er lev­el,” Car­ring­ton said.

Col­lens’ orig­i­nal tweet was retweet­ed 334 times, and had 750 re­ac­tions.

Car­ring­ton said it feels good to see the evo­lu­tion that has tak­en place.

“To be hon­est I am hap­py. I am al­ways in­ter­est­ed in how I could have af­fect­ed this space pos­i­tive­ly and to see that this has evolved to this point is amaz­ing,” he said.

“I have heard oth­er peo­ple say around me that they have nev­er seen lan­guage evolve in this way from start to fin­ish and for me to be able to be part of the cat­a­lyst for that has been amaz­ing,” Car­ring­ton said.

Cor­po­rate T&T and so­cial me­dia users have grav­i­tat­ed to the use of the term JA­VA.

“At first I was like so am I not go­ing to get any­thing from this? But af­ter look­ing in­to that and re­al­is­ing that that would not turn in­to any­thing else I just said I have giv­en some­thing to the cul­ture and I am grate­ful for that much,” he said.

Car­ring­ton’s first job was a teacher, fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of his fa­ther and grand­fa­ther.

He is now a writer who is set to pub­lish his first book 57 Days of Emo­tions, which is a col­lec­tion of writ­ings, most­ly po­et­ry.

“I see the im­por­tance and val­ue of lan­guage now. I did not un­der­stand it then and I fought against my dad for some time as teenagers do as it per­tains to the use of lan­guage and it hav­ing to be so struc­tured and rigid, but I see the val­ue in it now and I am us­ing that in my writ­ing with both stan­dard and di­alect and cre­ole to en­sure that I add to the val­ue of the way we use and utilise lan­guage,” he said.

Car­ring­ton’s first book will be launched on Au­gust 14.