27830: Bell: (question) who are "the others"? (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: madison bell <mbell@goucher.edu>

Sorry, this is a recondite Kreyol question but:

Albert Valdman, in Yale French Studies # 107 quotes the word "zottes" from
a colonial-era text and translates the word to mean "you"  vis

<<Zottes va pale li comme ca
You (plural) are going to speak to him thus>> p. 148 of Yale French studies
#107 in question.

I have seen other texts from the same period where the same word is spelled
"zautres" or "z'autres" which leads me to think it must derive from French
"les autres."

so how did we get from "the others" to "you"?  Anybody know?

Sorry for the academic nature of this question but I really would like to
know more about it and in the <<us>> vs <<them>> situation which seems to
obtain in Haiti these last days, it is sorta preying on my mind....

msb





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