Language as a carrier of tradition
Creole is a non-European language (although it borrows a number of lexical and syntactic elements from European languages). Creole languages are the result of contact between civilizations in a context marked by deportation, settlement and plantation societies, slavery, exploitation, racism and color prejudice. The fact remains that these languages born of horror nonetheless retain an essential dignity as tools of human communication, witnesses and preservers of history, and sometimes tools of resistance and liberation - even if they have also been used, on occasion, as instruments of domination. As we say proverbially in the West Indies: it's easier to deceive and mislead in "grand français" than in Creole.
Other designations
It's worth noting that the adjective "Creole" has been used not only to refer to languages, but also to designate, in a very general way, anything that has an indigenous character: Creole ox, Creole rooster, etc.
Today, depending on the Creole-speaking area, the term Creole, referring to men, can be applied to whites, mestizos or blacks. In post-independence Haiti, for example, the word Creole is used to designate any indigenous person, Mulatto or Black, and in this country the word can take on the meaning of "product, offshoot, regrowth", as in the example given by Robert Chaudenson: " kréyol bannann: regrowth of the banana tree" (in Les créoles, P.U.F., coll. "Que sais-je?").
In the Lesser Antilles, the word Creole was applied, as in the Spanish territories, to whites, then also to blacks (enslaved or free) born in the Antilles, thus distinguishing them from slaves born in Africa. Today, in these regions (Guadeloupe, Martinique), the term Blanc créole appears outdated, even retrograde, and is virtually never used: Creole language and culture, even if they also belong to the Békés (Blancs créoles), appear as elements of popular identity, and often as tools in the service of emancipation.
We conclude this introduction to the Creole language in general by stressing the importance of the study of Creoles for the question of the genesis of a language: Creole languages are very young languages (around 400 years old... only!).
Creole and Old French
French Creoles can tell us a lot about the French spoken in the 17th century, particularly in its regional varieties. From this point of view, Creole can be a "conservatory", even if we absolutely cannot establish the simplistic and erroneous relationship: Creole = Old French. At the same time, today's Martinican Creole contains words and phrases that can be said to belong to the language spoken in Molière's time, and which are sometimes preserved in certain French songs or ... in certain of Molière's comedies. Thus, in the old song Aux marches du Palais, we hear: "Dans le mitan du lit, nous dormirons ensemble lon-la...". Mitan is commonly used in Creole for: middle, center. For example, the old verb gourmer (to fight) has survived in Creole in the form goumen. Another example, concerning syntax: in the poem Pauvre Rutebeuf, we have this line - about missing friends: "Je crois le vent les a ôtés" ("I believe the wind has taken them away"), with the absence of the conjunction "que" after the declarative verb or the verb of opinion, a characteristic feature of Basilectal Creole, the furthest removed from French, according to Jean Bernabé. Creole would translate the verse as Man kwè van an chayé yo alé.
There are quite a few Old French terms preserved in Creole and still in common use today, in fields such as fishing, agriculture, crafts... For the reader's curiosity, we offer a few, taken from Serge Harpin's book La Pêche à la Martinique (ed. AMEP 1995): basse (shoal), kay(caye: coral reef), étal(lanmè étal : sea without waves), najé, najé ranm (row), zen (hook), pratik (practice : habitual clientele), chèpi (lint), biyo, biyo bwa (log: piece of wood), kondané, which sometimes has the old meaning of "to criticize, to speak ill of"; fè kotjen: to cheat (from "rascal"); boug: person (from bougre).
As for the presence of old French syntactic turns of phrase in today's Creole, the task is difficult. We'll confine ourselves here to two examples. Jean Bernabé hypothesizes that the term ka, a particle indicating duration(yo té ka travay: they were working), or repetition(man ka kontan chak lè man wè'w: I'm happy every time I see you), could derive from an old turn of phrase: "ils étaient qu'à..." indicating an activity, an occupation: "Pierre était qu'à dormir" means "Pierre was sleeping", which in Martinican Creole gives: Piè té ka dòmi (cf. Jean Bernabé, Obidjoul, p. 63).
The second example concerns Haitian Creole. This Creole differs from other Caribbean Creoles in its use of the particle ap in the same sense as ka. The term ap comes from the French après, used in a turn of phrase expressing an occupation, an action: " ils étaient après...", meaning "they were doing/they were devoting themselves to...".
Creole and Amerindian languages, Creole and African languages
In addition to French, Amerindian and African languages have made a significant contribution to Creole in the fields of fishing and the world of the sea in general, in the case of Amerindian languages, and in agriculture, dance and rhythm in the case of languages of African origin. In the world of the sea, many fish, shellfish and crustacean names are Caribbean. Examples of fish: akoupa, balawou, barakouda, waliwa, watalibi, mabouya (fish resembling the mabouya, a reptile with an Amerindian name). Examples of mollusks: walay (or chatou), wakawa (skate). Crustaceans: zagaya, touloulou, mantou (varieties of crab). As for boats: the words canots, wagaba (bowhead) and boutou (fishing club) come from Amerindian... Some places have also kept their Caribbean names: Macabou, Macouba, Massi-Massi, Jénipa, Karbé..
African languages are mainly found in the agricultural sector, in the names of plants and animals, and in the names of popular dances and rhythms: bokodji (yam), soukouyanyan (firefly), kalennda, ladja, bèlè (the latter, according to Joséphau, in Africanismes dans le créole, Cahiers du CERAG, 1977, refers to end-of-harvest celebrations, the French etymology "bel air" being fanciful)... On the subject of syntax, linguist Alain Bentolila notes a few points of resemblance with Ewe, a West African language, while remaining cautious on this point.
For the sake of completeness, let's note Indian (India) contributions in the culinary field, for example (colombo, curry, mandja...), and those of the Syrian-Lebanese community(schrubb, a liqueur made from rum and orange peel, is said to be a word of Arabic origin), as well as words inherited from English occupations: saybot (chest of drawers), ded (death), boskaf (shoes, from box-calf, a variety of leather), ti bray (little boy, from boy)..
Creole in Martinique: present and future
The "basilect" as a shepherd's star (model and guide). We have seen to what extent Martinique Creole is the result of multiple, sometimes unsuspected, contributions from Europe, Africa and America. While it is not possible here to offer the reader a grammar of Martinican Creole, we can try to identify a few features of what the Martinican linguist calls basilectal Creole, or, more simply put, basilect. This notion refers to the hard core of Creole, a language that could be called "pure", in the sense that it represents the Creole furthest removed from French. Rather than a purely theoretical approach, a few examples will enlighten the reader. The phenomenon that best characterizes Creole basilects, at the syntactic level, is duplication. Here are a few examples, borrowed from Jean Bernabé. The sentence " Sé chasé Pol chasé " (to translate "Paul a effectivement chassé") is profoundly Creole in structure. Between this basilectal pole and standard French, there are a number of statements more or less distant from standard French. These include: Sé chasé que Pol chasé; sé chasé Pol a chasé, etc.
Jean Bernabé speaks of a theoretical basilect, which is the sum of all basilectal features identified by linguistic research. The theoretical basilect does not belong to any one speaker; it transcends individual utterances (cf. Fondal Natal, tome I, p. 15).
Another example: " Man sav ou ké vini " (I know you'll come) is the correct form, unlike other more or less Frenchized forms such as: "Man sav kè ou ké vini, Man sav ku ou ké vini, Man sav ki ou ké vini..."
These duplications are also found in expressions of cause, consequence and simultaneity:
" Rivé mwen rivé, ou za ka babiyé mwen " ; "A peine-je arrive que tu me cherche noise ".
Duplication can also express opposition:
"Lanmè gwo, pwéson ki pwéson pa ka rété adan'y! "; "The sea is dismantled, even the fish (word for word: the fish that are [yet] the fish) can't stand! "
Another notable phenomenon is what Jean Bernabé calls the copy determinant (final reprise of the determinant in a relative):
"Bagay-la man té ba'w la, éti'y? ", "The thing I gave you, where is it?"; "Madanm-lan ki té la a, toutalè a, man té bouzwen wè a...", "The Lady who was here earlier, and whom I needed to see..."
A striking example of Basilectal deviance is the Creole/French crossover in the pronunciation of the French words bras and bois: bras français is pronounced bwa in Basilectal Creole (Martinique); bois français is pronounced bra in Basilectal Creole (Martinique).
For example: " I pati anba bra " (He fled into the woods), and " Bwa mwen ka fè mwen mal " (My arm hurts).
