Creoles and Patois
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On several territories presently or formerly under French rule, a French-based creole language creole language is widely spoken. These include (Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana, St. Lucia, Dominica, St. Martin, St. Barths, Marie-Galante, Les Saintes, Désirade, Mauritius, Seychelles and Réunion. In addition, in the Republic of Haiti, Haitian Creole is one of the two official languages. The language spoken in several other West Indian islands is called Antillean Creole.
In countries under English influence, French-based creoles have less standing. There are, however, also English-based creole languages spoken in the Caribbean, most notably in Jamaica.
The word Creole can also stand for a person, or groups of people. The word has carried many meanings over the course of time. It still retains some of them, such as a designation of a white person born in the islands, or his or her descendants. It can also stand for groups fully or partly of African descent, especially those that speak a creole language.
Patois is a French word referring to a regional 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 descendants. Their old French is a carefully preserved ancestral tongue like Sanskrit in Bali, remote Tamil Nadu village speech in the French West Indies, or Bhojpuri in Guyana or Trinidad & Tobago. With all its subtleties, Creole is no longer considered just bad or inferior language.
Creole and its many varieties evolved as a new form of patois as a result of interaction on the overseas plantations of Europe. It is a 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.
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... Incredible indeed, when you realize they live a whole section of the planet apart! This is a unique, amazing phenomenon. International Creole conferences will take place anywhere between Seychelles or Reunion and Martinique or Guadeloupe. St Lucia and Dominica could take part in such conferences; in fact, they should in a near future. The Creole heritage of these two formerly French islands is just immeasurable. Haiti, one of the largest Creole-speaking countries on the planet, has always maintained Creole as an institution.
It is not wrong to call the people's language of the Anglophone islands their own patois. The Creole patois has made it possible for many Dominicans to make a living in Guadeloupe and for many St. Lucians to do the same in Martinique. Through this procedure many of them eventually become French citizens.
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 - it can be done through search engines like Google. Many foreign residents learn Creole while sharing the islands easy-going, swinging, enjoyable life-style.
Many West Indians who emigrated to other countries have not taught their language to their offspring. This abandonment of the language may be 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 kanpay.
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.
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 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 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 the Creole populations today is an obvious fact. 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. After all, it brings about some thoughts, as to why racism(the real hard terminology), has never been deep-rooted in such "creole speaking countries" of the world. Is it all due to the creole culture?
