CREOLE - JUST ANOTHER PATOIS? A REFLECTION ON FRENCH PATOIS AND CARIBBEAN (AND OTHER) CREOLES
On the islands under French influence like Guadeloupe, Martinique, St.
Lucia, Dominica, St. Martin, St. Barths, Marie-Galante, Les Saintes,
Désirade... or Mauritius, Seychelles and Reunion, as well as French
Guiana... nearly all the population speaks a form of French-based
Creole as their first language... And, all these people can understand each other!
In countries under English influence, Creole has less standing, although there are creolized forms of English...
A person cannot be called a patois. But you can be a Creole, no matter your racial origin. Patois is a French word meaning a regional or very local language. A French synonym for un patois is un parler. Most regions of France like Picardie, Jura, Savoie, Provence or Aveyron, just to cite a few, have their patois or parler local, sometimes disappearing, sometimes being revived.
The people of Québec in Canada have kept the language and accents of the time they left France, as have the Louisiana Cajun descendents. Their old French is a precisely preserved ancestral tongue like Sanskrit in Bali, remote Tamil Nadu village speech in the French West Indies, or Bhojpuri in Guyana or Trinidad & Tobago. It is not just "bad language".
Creole and its many varieties also evolved as a patois on the overseas plantations of Europe.
It is the common language emanating from the culture of people who have
evolved in a Creole environment, where French masters living far from
France adopted this life-style during the time they had African slaves
and later, indentured Indian and Chinese laborers.
This Indo-St. Lucian lady could speak her original Bhodjpuri, and Creole, as she became a Creole West Indian.
From the James Rambally photo collection.
Reproduced with kind permission.
Many Creole phrases can be recovered by Creole linguists from old
parlers of various French regions. This is one of the reasons why when
a Guadeloupean or Martinican meets a Reunionese or Mauritian, they soon manage to
understand each other totally, all the while being charmed by the
inflexions of each other’s tongue and enjoying it immensely...
Incredible indeed, when you realize they live a whole section of the planet apart! This is an unique, universal, and amazing phenomenon. International Creole conferences will take place anywhere between
Seychelles or Reunion and Martinique or Guadeloupe, and the participants will soon understand each other ! The islands of St Lucia and
Dominica could take part in such conferences, too; in fact, they should. The
French Creole heritage of these two formerly French islands is just
immeasurable. As for Haiti, one of the largest Creole-speaking countries on the planet, it has always maintained Creole as a highly considered institution.
It is not wrong to call the people's language of the Anglophone islands
their own patois. It is our Creole patois that has made it possible for so
many Dominicans to make a living in Guadeloupe and for so many St.
Lucians to do the same in Martinique. Through this procedure many of
them eventually become French citizens... It's just that the patois-speaking people cannot be called patois, but
instead patois-speaking, or Creole, in reference to the precise patois
we are dealing with here. Yes, the word Creole has carried many meanings over the course of time.
It still keeps some of them, like a white person born in the islands,
or their descendents... Again, Creole is not a black African culture. Creole living is not a
life-style of Black people in Trinidad & Tobago or Guyana as some
may think, although part of its grammatical originality, for instance,
is definitely African.
Besides many varieties of French, the creativity of Creole also stems
from words, grammar forms or inflexions taken or adapted from Spanish,
Portuguese, Hindi, Tamil, English and many other languages. This too,
needs to be emphasized. Creole literature - essays, poetry or novels - both in French and
Creole, is penned by people of all colors and bloods; and, it is
outstanding. Creole deserves some exploration and a lot of it can be done on the internet through search engines like Google.
Many foreign residents learn Creole while staying in the islands,
because it takes them from broomstick strictness and stiffness to
sharing the easy-going, swinging, enjoyable life-style of the islands... It is however a regrettable fact that a large number of West Indians who have
left the islands to live in other countries - like continental France,
Canada, the USA or Great-Britain - have given up the language and will
not transmit it to their offspring. Many, however, although away from home, have managed to continue to speak Creole and even to teach it to their European partners!
One reason for this abandon maybe because for a long time the Creole patois
was considered a handicap to proper education à la Française; thus, an
obstacle to learning good French (or English) but rather a way to learn
the bad manners of uneducated “country” people - moun la kanpangn.
Fortunately, just when one thought it would have disappeared, Creole is
making a come-back in force. Its grammatical structures and vocabulary
have been standardized - although its creativity continues to challenge
any permanent codification - and is being taught in schools as a means
of preserving its rich heritage. Specialized linguists groups like the GEREC in Martinique as well as grassroots cultural gatherings have widely contributed to this renewal.
For, how can you separate a culture from the language it thrives on ?! Nowadays in Guadeloupe and Martinique, Creole can be heard freely
during any program on radio and television channels, official or not,
along with perfect French, and not as a separate entity. In St. Lucia
and Dominica, entire programs, speeches, and books have been produced
in this language. This indeed is the best reflection of the real life in
our islands.
When Indian indentured laborers - the jahajis (people of the ship) as
they are called in some places like Trinidad or Jamaica or coolies, as they were
called, not without disdain, in the French West Indies and elsewhere -
arrived in Guadeloupe from so many parts of India, speaking a variety
of languages and village vernaculars, they quickly resorted to using
the language spoken by the masters and former slaves in order to
communicate; grabbing what was already universal and convenient.
The impact of this flexibility on the harmony of our population today has indeed been no less than wonderful. In the same vein, in the culinary domain, the Colombo dish itself,
considered the "national" dish of Guadeloupe and Martinique by Indians
and non-Indians alike, is a Creole production born of the encounter of
peoples from diverse areas of India each contributing their Kolbu (a
tamil word), curries, medicinal plants, culinary secrets..., and freely
given to the whole; sharing being indeed a basic trait of Creole
culture.
One cannot ignore Creole. You deserve to browse through this treasure trove. This is especially
true if you are a strict Anglophone and haven't been able to access the
huge mass of documentation on Creole, available in French, Creole or English. So, go for it! The writer-adventurer of the latter 19th and early 20th
centuries, Mr. Lafcadio Hearn, among many other bright people, have
done so before you... and have left the Indies so much the richer for
it.
©JS Sahai, July 2006.
-----------------
APPENDIX :
The internet hosts dictionaries of hundreds of varieties of French patois, see -
http://tinyurl.com/nhh5r
Some French Creole dictionaries can be found here -
http://tinyurl.com/r9hdn
Some English Creole dictionaries here -
http://tinyurl.com/nl5hn
Martinican Creolist writer Raphael Confiant's interactive and progessive Creole-French dictionary can be found here -
http://tinyurl.com/r3ae7
20 key Creole sentences of Emmanuel W. Védrine -
http://tinyurl.com/mmkef
-------------------
©J.S. Sahai 2006.
Reproduction forbidden without the author's consent.
Press and media are welcome to contact JS Sahai for free lance contributions.
Every
year the people of Dominica and St. Lucia celebrate Kweyol or the
traditional Creole language and culture. For one week in October, they
dress in 'Kweyol' fashion, and on one day they speak only in Kweyol. The sounds of Kweyol permeate the entire society and has become part
of the consciousness of even those who are not primarily Kweyol
speakers. The language and culture are intertwined,'' observes St.
Lucia's Folk Research Centre (FRC)...
Continue reading this excellent article on World Education Forum.
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mwen c'est on monde Dominicain, mais aprezain mwen ka rete en St. Thomas. Mwen ka lea tout bite' en creole, pasque mwen vlais creole vini lang mama en Dominique. Beaucoup monde en Dominique pa vlais petit zafan yeux parler creole, pasque yeux ka querre c'est pou monde bas en socite'. Mais yeux pas sav tout lang commecer kor sa. Mwen arma parler lang sa la. C'est lang gwo papa mwen et gwo mama mwen, pou nous continua moutway c'est jen gene en tout paye creole. E c'est on plasir!
Posted by: Wayne | 23/02/2008 at 21:34
Mwen kai faire'y en kweyol pisquer moun assou site sa la ka coupe sa moun ecrit kon eux voule. Mwen c'est un antillien ma sorti Afrique ma sorti Inde. Toute moun qui voule faire accordit eux sorti pays etranger ka destuir kilti antillien. Nous c'est yon peuple ek c'est faut nous accepter yon a l'autre.
Merci un pil
Posted by: Kimani Goddard | 03/08/2006 at 11:51
It's nice to see someone on this site talking about things that unite us as a result of shared experiences.
As long as we perceive ourselves as separate and perceive our fellow human beings as the barbaric other we will never achieve greatness.
Greatness of Caribbean people of every ethnicity does not exist in those countries which were home to our ancestors before they graced the shores of the Caribbean.
Caribbean greatness will find itself in the collective experiences of those who inhabit it and who sweat and blood have brought it forth. Ancestors who once existed in other nations are to be respected and we respect our Caribbean traditions and the people that we are...
We in the Caribbean are a culture and a civilisation in our own right, we need to embrace our nationality and our people and stop rating our culture as somehow second to that of India or Africa. Praise our people and our culture....(the many facets of it).
Peace and Love
All ah we is one family
So thank you very much to the person who posted the French Creole story.
I am from St. Lucia and speak French Creole and yes I do understand people from all the regions you mentioned. It is a language in its own right. Exactly my point about shared experience breeding new civilisation and new things to be proud of.
Taking pride that we are now able to lift our head proudly from slavery and indentureship.
Ok bye.
Posted by: Kimani Goddard | 02/08/2006 at 15:54