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What do popular English colloquialisms like “long time no see”, “lose face”, and “no can do” have in common? Far from neologisms, these simple, staccato utterances all originated centuries ago as a means of facilitating trade between the English and Chinese. Beginning in the 17th century, as English merchants crossed the Indian Ocean and sailed upwards through the South China Sea, they met with their Asian counterparts and, out of necessity, developed a means of communication that melded English words with Chinese sentence structure. The result was a pidgin language that would be the mercantile lingua franca for over two centuries. Pidgin languages – originally a business vernacular – are characterized by a limited vocabulary, simplified grammar and syntax, and an unfussy disregard for subject-verb agreement. Allegedly, the name comes from the mispronunciation of the word “business” by those selfsame Mandarin speakers that introduced so many colorful phrases into everyday English. While a rudimentary sort of communication was necessary, Chinese merchants of the 17th and 18th centuries held the English language in low esteem and did not feel compelled to learn it fully. The 19th century, however, saw an upswell in English-language education as pidgin came to be viewed as degrading. Pidgin languages are nobody’s native tongues. They arise out of necessity and survive so long as they are needed. Examples of pidgin languages exist in several African
Mardi 16 octobre prochain, la Bibliothèque Universitaire du Campus de Schoelcher organise, à 18h30, une conférence-débat dans le cadre des manifestations de « KANPIS KREYOL » sur le thème de « La Traduction en créole ». Les traducteurs ci-après animeront cette conférence : . Jean-Pierre ARSAYE, traducteur de Maupassant . Jean-Marc ROSIER, traducteur de Camus (« Caligula ») . Judes DURANTY, traducteur de Maryse Condé . Térez LEOTIN, traductrice de Molière . Raphaël CONFIANT, traducteur de Camus (« L’Etranger ») Si nul n’ignore plus qu’il existe des textes littéraires écrits en langue créole depuis le milieu du 18è siècle et que la littérature en créole n’a cessé de s’étoffer depuis, peu de gens savent que la traduction y a occupé une place importante. En effet, la traduction des Fables de Lafontaine ou leur réécriture/réadaptation au contexte antillais et guyanais a occupé nombre d’auteurs : François Marbot (Martinique, 1846), Paul Baudot (Guadeloupe, 1860), Alfred de Saint-Quentin (Guyane, 1874), Georges Sylvain (Haïti, 12905), Georges Gratiant (Martinique, 1958) ou encore Hector Poullet et Sylviane Telchid (Guadeloupe, 2002). A partir de la deuxième moitié du 20è siècle, les traducteurs créolophones se sont attaqués à d’autres auteurs, notamment Maupassant, Molière ou Camus. Et même à des auteurs antillais écrivant en français (« Le Cahier d’un retour au pays natal » d’Aimé Césaire » par R. Confiant, « Cyclone Hugo » de Maryse Condé par J. Duranty etc.). C’est que presque toutes les langues du monde sont devenues des langues littéraires de plein exercice grâce à la traduction, celles d’Europe ayant commencé par la traduction de la Bible comme c’est le cas de l’allemand avec Martin Luther. Si le créole veut devenir une langue littéraire à part entière, il ne saurait faire l’impasse sur ce (redoutable) exercice. La conférence-débat se tiendra au 3è étage de la Bibliothèque Universitaire.
By Hubert Devonish, Guest Columnist The minister of education is reported in The Gleaner of August 22, 2012 as lamenting the fact that in the CSEC English A examination, Jamaican students fell woefully short in critically assessing a passage. He suggests that too much emphasis has been placed on memorisation. Correspondingly, he feels, too little attention has been given to the higher forms of intellectual activity, analysis and critical thinking. When one has difficulty understanding and processing information, one memorises it. In the Jamaican situation, what stands in the way of understanding and processing knowledge and information presented in English is the language barrier. Most Jamaicans, be they adults or children, are native speakers of Jamaican, a Creole language with a grammatical structure which is quite distinct from English. In recent days, a wide range of voices, from the principal of Campion College to the president of the Jamaica Teachers' Association, are proclaiming a self-evident fact: that English is not the native language of the vast majority of Jamaicans. They state that Jamaican/Jamaican Creole/Patwa/Dialect is. A visitor from Mars would think that these proclamations are the result of some new situation that has developed. In fact, this has been the state of affairs from the 17th century. And, for the record, the native speakers of Jamaican were never restricted to the black and oppressed masses. British visitors to the island in the 18th century bemoaned the speech of the white daughters of plantation owners, their drawl and their use of good old Jamaican words such as 'nyam' (eat) and 'bobi' (breast) at the dinner table.
LE COURRIER DES LECTEURS - M. Gauvin nous assène régulièrement des « leçons » de linguistique qui me laissent pantois, venant de quelqu’un qui s’est autoproclamé « spécialiste de la langue créole ». En fait,...
Pidgin language is nobody's native language; it may arise when two speakers of different languages with no common language try to hold a conversation, i.e., a pidgin is a language developed by people whose mother tongues are different in order to facilitate communication between them. Lexicon usually comes from one language, structure often from the other. It has a very simple structure and doesn’t last for a long period of time. Its complexity varies according to the communicative demands placed on it. The more there are functional demands, the more powerful and complex the pidgin is. It is used as a second language and within a very limited domain (trade).
Pidgins and Creoles are distributed mainly in places with direct or easy access to the oceans. Thus, they are found mainly in the Caribbean and around the north and east coasts of South America and those of Africa as well. Their distribution is related to long-standing patterns of trade, including trade in slaves. There are around 127 pidgins and creoles. Thirty-five of these are English-based such as Hawaiian Creole, Jamaican Creole, Krio and Chinese Pidgin English. Examples of French-based ones are Louisiana Creole, Haitian Creole, and Mauritian Creole. The majority of Pidgins and Creoles are based on European languages. Yet, several ones like Chinook Jargon and Sango show little or no contact with a European language. This lack of contact is an important factor in the origins of pidgins and creoles and their shared characteristics.
Schultz Laurent Junior
Le dictionnaire est l'un des ouvrages de référence le plus apprécié.
Fort de France. Mercredi 16 mai 2012. CCN. Nous reprenons la série des chroniques sur l’épineuse problématique de la « décréolisation » proposée par l’universitaire Jean Bernabé, lequel poursuit - inlassablement son travail de « ...
Fort-de-France. Mercredi 28 mars 2012. CCN. L'universitaire créoliste Jean Bernabé, Professeur émérite, poursuit dans CCN, sa réflexion sur la problématique très actuelle de la décréolisation. Le rapport des humains à la langue ne doit pas...
Serge Fuertes n'est pas linguiste. Mais cela ne l'a pas empêché d'écrire une brique monumentale sur le créole haïtien.
Le Mois de l'histoire des Noirs est l'occasion idéale pour souligner l'apport culturel de nos concitoyens de toutes origines. Serge Fuertes, un Haïtien devenu Gatinois au début des années 70, en est un bon exemple.
In the Spanish Town Tabernacle, near Kingston, the congregation is listening to the word of God in the language of the streets. For the first time, the Bible is being translated into Jamaican Patois; a move that is welcomed by those wishing to have their mother tongue reinstated as the recognized national language. Listening to the sound of Creole, developed from English by West African slaves in Jamaica’s sugar plantation’s 400 years ago, has an electrifying effect.
- Lettre ouverte à monsieur Didier Robert, président du Conseil régional de La Réunion, - Actualités de La Réunion...
It is time to give our minority language an official status
Paris, France — We are often defined by a number of important cultural and linguistic attributes. Jamaicans, what is our race? What is our ethnicity?
Site de promotion des cultures et des langues créoles - Annou voyé kreyòl douvan douvan...
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