TATA IRANAH

Anba pie tamaren kan peyna pou’al lekol
Mo Tata Iranah, enn ti-frer mo granper,
Atir tou bann zanfan – bann marmay fer laronn
Kouma grap mous dimiel otour fler roz vieyfi
Pou nouri rev sekre kot ti-bout manz gro-bout –
Pou fer nou viv ansam atraver lang Kreol
Zistwar bolom loulou, Tizan gran debrouyar,
Zistwar gato kanet, yev dan basen lerwa.
Mo Tata Iranah depi bien-bien lontan
Finn kit nou, finn ale. Enn gran lakaz beton
Dan plas pie tamaren pe sey efas memwar
Ti-garson Foukalend ki ti aprann reve,
Ki ti aprann koze, ki ti aprann panse
Anba pie tamaren. Peyna pli bon lekol.

 
GRANDAD IRANAH

Beneath the old tamarind tree when school was closed
Grandad Iranah, Tata’s young brother,
Gathered all children – a ring of kids
As honey bees sucking nectar from wild flowers,
Cherishing the dream of the dwarf killing a giant –
And made us relive through our language
The adventures of Tizan against the big bad wolf,
The story of sweet marbles, the hare in the king’s pool.
Grandad Iranah left us a long time ago
And now a concrete house stands
Where the tamarind tree used to be
To blot out Crazylands boy’s history
Learning to dream, to speak, to think
Beneath the tamarind tree. The best of schools!

MIND YOUR LANGUAGE 3

(ON THE WORD PATOIS)

“Patois is speech or language that is considered nonstandard, although the term is not formally defined in linguistics. As such, patois can refer to pidgins, creoles, dialects or vernaculars …
In colloquial usage of the term, especially in France, class distinctions are implied by the very meaning of the term, since in French, patois refers to any sociolect associated with uneducated rural classes, in contrast with the dominant prestige language (Standard French) spoken by the middle and high classes of cities or as used in literature and formal settings (the “acrolect”).” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patois)
CARACTERISTICS OF A PATOIS
• It is spoken by a minority;
• It is not standardised;
• It has no prestige;
• It is used orally only;
• It is considered to be a corrupt form of some prestigious language;
• It is not used in literature;
• It is very often considered as part of a country’s folklore.
IS MAURITIAN A PATOIS?
It cannot be. WHY?
• It is the mother tongue, the first language (L1) of 90% of the population of Mauritius and the second language (L2) of the remaining 10% whose L1 is Bhojpuri (5%) and French (3.8%). It is used by 100% of the population;
• It is used informally in administration;
• It is used in churches, mosques and temples;
• It is taught in schools;
• It is a powerful medium of literary creation;
• It is used by electronic media etc.
It belongs to a family of languages known as Creole and in that group, there are about 100 languages among which we find Afrikaans (one of the national languages of South Africa), Sango (the national and official language of the Central African Republic), Tok Pisin (the official language of Papua New Guinea) and English which, according to scholars, developed as a result of the invasion of England by Vikings 1200 years ago.
WHO CALL IT PATOIS?
Most people call the language of Mauritius ‘Kreol’; some have started to call it ‘Morisien’ but a handful insist on calling it patois. Who are they? They are a few mentally retarded Euro-creoles who still think Mauritius is ‘La Petite France’. For them Morisien is ‘pete bourik’ (dixit Malcolm de Chazal); it is the object of sarcasm, contempt and ridicule; it’s good only for swearing, rudeness and crude jokes …
DIFISIL POU OUVER LIZIE TANG!
21.07.22