16008: Vedrine: Re: 16002: Lally: French vs Creole (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: E Vedrine <evedrine@hotmail.com>


French influence on the people of the French Caribbean (Antilles Francaises)
is quite significant. The main language in these places is certainly FRENCH,
but I pretty much doubt to find people who were born there and don't speak
Kweyol (as they call it). Last month I was in French Guyana for an
international conference on WRITING THE LANGUAGES OF FRENCH GUYANA (about 10
are spoken there). A young man from Martinique (in his 20's) has interviewed
me in both French and Kweyol and he said he's currently writing a Master's
thesis in Kweyol (with focus on the media). On May 12, a group of young High
School students (about 20) from Martinique boarded the Air France flight I
was traveling with (from Port of Spain, Trinidad); though they were speaking
in French, upon arrival in Martinique an old Haitian guy accidently  hit one
on the head while pulling his bag from the overhead compartment; she was
quite agitated and she spoke in Kweyol to the old man. Maybe those who were
born in the Metropol (France) and move to theses places don't master the
Kweyol language), but automatically I think those who were born in the
French Antilles do have a mastery of Kweyol; now writing Kweyol might be
sth. else for them since everything is in French since they are part of the
main land (France).

E.W.Vedrine

>From: Reynald Lally <r.bourbon@sympatico.ca>
>
>I was on a Air France flight to Miami and sitting next to me was Young
>white
>American girl. I asked what was she was doing in Haiti and she answered
>that
>she had boarded the plane at Fort de France , where she had been there for
>four
>months trying to teach Creole to the Martiniquais.
>I answered saying ,why should an AMERICAN women  try to convert the
>Martiniquais to use  Creole not  French.
>In MARTINIQUE people speak French first, but like the Welsh language in
>Britain
>, Creole is enjoying a renaissance.She become quite agitated , and said
>that
>the people should speak IN Creole not French there.I said would Americans
>appreciate French people trying to come to the States and promote a local
>dialect to replace English.
>
>When we arrived I said goodbye , she did not answer.
>I want to know is this an isolated case of Americans trying to convert
>people
>from French into Creole.
>What is the advantage of this policy?
>
>Reynald Lally

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