A FEW THINGS TO REMEMBER

The culture and creole language festival must be put in its proper context.
• The English language uses the word ‘language’ to mean ‘the principal method of human communication, consisting of words used in a structured and conventional way and conveyed by speech, writing, or gesture’. The word is also used to mean other things as in such expressions as: vulgar language, language of flowers, language of mathematics etc. The French language has TWO words: ‘langue’ and ‘langage’ as in expressions such as ‘la langue franҁaise’ and ‘le langage des oiseaux’. The Mauritian language (Mauritian Creole) has TWO as well (lang and langaz). It’s my belief that we should not ignore this. We should refer to ‘lang kreol’ and NOT to ‘langaz kreol’.
• Creole is a group or family of languages which emerge when speakers of two or more languages feel the need to develop a new instrument of verbal communication. There are more than 100 such languages in the world; they are found in all continents and have a variety of lexifiers (the main vocabulary source). At the initial stage, the new speech which is very elementary, is called a ‘pidgin’. As it grows structurally and lexically and becomes the mother tongue of children, it enters a second stage of evolution known as ‘creole’. A third stage is reached when it takes the name of a community/people/country. Mauritian, is the first language of 90% of the Mauritian population and the second language of the remaining 10%. It is a misnomer to call it LANGAZ KREOL. The world has now several prestigious creole languages: Afrikaans, Sango, Krio etc. The most prestigious of them all is English, the world lingua franca, a quasi-universal language, which we are fortunate to have as our official language.
• Mauritian Creole is not a corrupt form of French (broken French). If French has been the main lexifier for quite some time, now the national language of the Republic is open to English vocabulary and also that of several north and south Indian languages over and above words of Islamic and Chinese origins. At the level of syntax, it is analytic (isolating) and not synthetic (inflexional) as French. We are very fortunate that from a syntactic point of view, our national and official languages are quite similar and this is definitely an advantage to help us attain universal functional literacy.
• We live on creole islands where immigrants from Africa, Europe and Asia have chosen to build their future. Moreover, we speak three creole languages – Mauritian, Rodriguan and English. We have a beautiful creole cuisine which is developing very fast thanks to the creativity of our chefs and homemakers.
• Let us celebrate this unique culture!
06.12.22