10.5.2004
Raphael,
Thank you very much. I did check Capes Kreyol and was quite pleased. I read the interview with you and I learnt something new.. I always knew that The Kweyol lexicon was from old French but you clarified the origin for me when you stated that "creole roots are in dialectical French from the seventeenth century". For me this opens up a whole new world in the study of our language.
I was also interested in your disappointment that Creole speakers borrows whole phrases from the French we have the identical problem in English and I was making quite the same obsevation recently at a conference organised by the Folk Research Centre in St.Lucia.
I have not contacted Bernabe because I am completing a research proposal to send to him. Thanking you for keeping in contact.
Travis WEEKS (Saint-Lucia)
38 - Thank you very much. ...
I agree with you : the biggest problem our common creole language is facing nowdays is what linguists call "decreolization" that is to say it becommes more en more french in the French territories (Martinique, Guadeloupe and French Guyana) and more and more english in the english-speaking territories.
The case of Haiti is particular : their creole is more and more mixed with both french and english sentences. I do fear that maybe one day we won't be able to understand ourselves and that our creoles will evolve as completely different languages.
What can we do to stop that dramactic perspective ? In my way, we should work closer, we should try to promote a unified written form of creole that could be used by all creole writers, journalists, politicians etc...throughout the Caribbean. I know it is a very difficult task but if we fail to accomplish it, no doubt that creole will disappear.
Let's continue to keep in touch !
Raphaël
The case of Haiti is particular : their creole is more and more mixed with both french and english sentences. I do fear that maybe one day we won't be able to understand ourselves and that our creoles will evolve as completely different languages.
What can we do to stop that dramactic perspective ? In my way, we should work closer, we should try to promote a unified written form of creole that could be used by all creole writers, journalists, politicians etc...throughout the Caribbean. I know it is a very difficult task but if we fail to accomplish it, no doubt that creole will disappear.
Let's continue to keep in touch !
Raphaël