The birth of a language
Slaves of all ethnic groups, cut off from their roots and united in spite of themselves by isolation and poverty, gradually abandoned the language of their ancestors to adopt the provincial linguistic heritage of their masters, French in this case, mixed with a few African and Indo-Portuguese words. The term Creole has two etymologies, one Portuguese, from crioulo, the other Spanish, from criollo, both derived from the Latin criare, meaning "he who is raised on the spot", i.e. the child of the first European immigrants. Later, the word came to designate the black population and its meaning was extended to anyone born in the New World, before linguists used it to designate the language born of colonization. The term carries with it the wounds of uprooting, the bite of the whip, but also the promise of a new people. Customs and cultures, rhythms and diverse intonations make up a picturesque, melodious potpourri, the first step towards a local language. Creole then spread to the other islands of the Indian Ocean, following the peregrinations of human beings.
Although historical and political events led to separate evolutions and different linguistic characteristics, the different Creoles retain a family resemblance. On Reunion Island, which has always remained under French rule, the cousinship is obvious. In Mauritius, the Creole language has been enriched by Indianisms. In the Seychelles, the language is probably closest to its original state, but this is difficult to confirm in the absence of written documents, as Creole was first and foremost a spoken language.
The cement of the Seselwa people
In the Seychelles, colonial society, which saw this bastard language as an exotic piece of junk enabling masters to pass on orders to slaves, banned it from schools, churches and, of course, all institutions.
Nonetheless, deeply rooted in popular culture, this language, which the colonists called petit nègre without any consideration, continued to develop spontaneously, alongside French and English, until it became a language in its own right. In 1944, a reform of the public education system gave the Creole language a major boost. To promote English in the school system, French was abolished. As a result, the most popular language, in the strictest sense of the term, gained a firmer foothold. In 1967, with universal suffrage, politics entered public life. To win over their electorate, politicians had to speak in Creole, which at the same time conquered radio and newspapers, and virtually gained the status of official language. When the country gained independence in 1976, Creole became a working language alongside the other two official languages, English and French. In 1977, the people sang a national anthem in Creole. The government extended the use of the language to all areas of life.
In 1978, a proposal was published for a rational, phonetic spelling of this primarily oral language, which was elevated to the status of official language for the first time in 1981. Two years later, Danielle de Saint-Jorre and Guy Lionnet published a dictionary of some six thousand Seychellois terms, while the first books in Creole were published. The Creole Institute was created in 1986. "For a long time, we mistakenly lived with the idea that Creole was a bastard language, whereas in fact it is an idiom in its own right, with an undeniable richness, since we translate Le Petit Prince as well asAntigone . Those who insist on seeing it as corrupt French would have to admit, if they were to follow their own principle, that French itself was originally a corruption of Latin. The sociological context in which French and Creole developed is more or less the same," Danielle de Saint-Jorre points out. As the first national language of the Republic of Seychelles, Kreol Seselwa is therefore a revised French that has found its own identity and constitutes the main cement of an entire people.
A zoli zoli tongue
What a delight for a Frenchman to hear the melody of Creole! What a pleasure it is, too, to rediscover Old French words such as doutance (to suspect), espere (to hope) to wait, marmay (marmaille) for child, rode (to prowl) to search, veye (to watch) to look, gagne (to win) to have, reste (to remain) to live, gete (to watch) to look, kose (to talk) to speak, taye (to trim) to run. You'll easily recognize the terms used by the sailors who landed here, such as akoste (accoster) to lean against, amare (amarrer) to tie up, pare (parer) to be ready, bor (bord) for direction. You'll be surprised by some Anglicisms like benzine for petrol, diary for diary, driver for driver, sennglas(sunglasses) for sunglasses, dobliyousi (water-closet). You'll also find words of Swahili origin(kafoul, coconut shell), Indian origin(kalou, palm wine), Malagasy origin(farfar, fish-smoking rack). With no article, no gender, no plural and only three tenses - past, present, future - and no real conjugation, Creole grammar is relatively easy to learn. As for the vocabulary, it seems apparently self-evident, with a system of negations: un kos pas (cause pas) is a mute; of associations: une abeille is a mous dimyel (honey fly), une bebet prive (private baby) is a domestic animal; of images: une fanm gro vant (big-bellied woman) is a pregnant woman, une ponm zenou is the kneecap, un kolodan (tooth glue) is a nougat; of onomatopoeia: gnongnon for violin, kotkot for hen; declensions from the same word: bato a vwal (sailboat), bato diri (cargo ship bringing rice), bato lager (warship), bato peser (fisherman's boat), bato plezans (pleasure boat), bato sovtaz (lifeboat). It's a langaz zoli zoli with all the assets to inspire linguistic vocations, with its vokabiler bursting with smells and colors. In any case, it's the best passport to Creolia!
