Posted: Thu 23 Jul 2009 02:53 Post subject: TRINIDAD : A LANGUAGE LOST
Quote:
TRINIDAD : A LANGUAGE LOST (YON LANG NOU PÈDI)
dimanche 2 décembre 2007 par la rédaction de Montray Kreyol
"Tou lé jou, nou ka twavay rèd".
Like the majority of Trinidadians, you would probably be scratching your head, wondering what the above sentence means.
It is local patois and translates into "everyday we working hard". There was a time when the majority of the population could understand the language, but that was a long time ago, before it began dying.
The name "patois" was originally used to refer to non-standard regional dialects of French peasants in France. The word means "rough speech" (17th century French) and is thought to have come from "patoier" ("to treat roughly"), ultimately from "patte" ("paw") in Old French.
Patois is a contact language and one born out of contact between and among speakers of vastly different languages in Caribbean islands such as Trinidad, specifically the French colonisers and African slaves. (Patois in Trinidad : Did you Know ? by the Department of Liberal Arts, UWI).
Pardon my patois
Parang impresario Holly Betaudier, who also hosts a programme on I95.5 called Toute Bagai (the patois for "everything"), told the Sunday Express that the patois was originally a language of necessity created by the African slaves to communicate with their masters.
He noted that the French never taught slaves their language but the English did. When the British system was brought in, the colonisers taught everyone to speak their language and the patois became a "bastard" language.
Betaudier’s parents came from Martinique and his grandmother, who raised him, only spoke the patois to him. He recalled going to school and one day the whole class laughing at him because he was talking English with a patois accent.
He said that during that time, if a student couldn’t speak English, he was considered "less than a dog". He added that to get employment, people had to speak and write in English, and the patois was considered "degrading", so only older people spoke it.
Betaudier noted that the original calypsoes were sung in the patois, but eventually they became anglicised, though vestiges remain, such as the refrain "santimanitay" in extempo ("sans humanité" translated as "without mercy").
Derek Parker, French teacher at Trinity College, Maraval, who also studies linguistics, informed the Sunday Express that the patois was widely spoken by the population in the 1890s-among roughly 70 per cent of the common people of the country.
But by the 1920s, the language began to "die" in a visible way and in the 1940s and 1950s, the patois-speaking population had been reduced to an estimated 15 per cent.
And what about today ?
Parker estimated that it has reduced even further, with maybe six per cent with a real working knowledge of the language. He noted, however, that though you find a minute number of people who speak it fluently, especially in rural Trinidad, you can find people anywhere who understand or speak a phrase or two in the patois. He added that a lot of them were not aware that it was the patois they were speaking.
The language continues to flourish in communities like Valencia, Blanchisseuse, Toco, Arima and Santa Cruz ; and in Paramin, it also survives in the form of Christmas Kwèch (crèche) music (Patois in Trinidad).
Parker noted that another major activity that celebrates the language in that community is the patois mas held every Sunday before Carnival and conducted almost entirely in the language by a native patois-speaking priest or one from St Lucia or Guadeloupe. It is also attended by patois speakers from all over Maraval and various parts of the country, as well as visitors from Martinique, Haiti,
Guadeloupe, France, as well people interested in indigenous languages.
Augustine Fournillier, 90, of Balatta Trace, Paramin, has been speaking the language since she was eight years old, and during the interview she broke frequently into the patois (though without translation).
The mother of 13 and grandmother of about 30 said that plenty people in the community speak it and she "cannot finish check" how many. She recalled that the patois was once referred to as a "hog language".
Betaudier said that even today there is disdain about speaking any other way than English, and he has suffered a lot of criticism from it.
Swan song for patois ?
He noted that besides discrimination, the patois became a secretive language for another reason, as parents would use it as a code language to keep their children from understanding what they were saying. He said the children were encouraged to go to "English school" and learn.
"They talk patois without handing it down to the younger ones," he noted.
Augustine’s son, Winston Fournillier, 64, also recalled some parents using the patois as a clandestine language. He, however, did teach it to his children and while some of the older children in the community were trying to learn it, the younger ones "doh want that, they find that too broken".
Winston noted that young parents also did not want to speak patois to children because they believe it is an "insult".
"It is really dying out among the younger folks, but the old people always talk their patois ; wherever they meet, they talk their little patois," said Monica Fournillier, 74, and cousin-in-law to Augustine.
She also attempted to teach it to her children, but they resisted ; and she was not sure why Indo-Trinidadians were able to pass on Hindi words and phrases to their children.
She said that she has a grand-daughter, however, who always asks questions about the patois and has shown an interest in learning it. She predicted that after a time, younger people will take it up.
Monica advised that to revive the language, they should be talking it in schools, in church and at home, and parents should "bawl" at children and use the patois to spark their interest.
Augustine said that previously, the patois was looked down upon, though some want to bring it back "to put in a book". She suggested that parents could teach their children, but doubted that it could be taught formally.
"They cannot teach somebody a proper patois in school," she said.
Winston said that older people could teach children from about four or five years, possibly starting with kitchen words. He added that it could be introduced in the formal school system.
Parker said that over the past ten to 12 years, there have been attempts to revive the language, mostly at the academic level.
UWI scholars and interested persons have undertaken many projects to document and preserve the language in Trinidad and throughout the region. Courses in French Creole are currently offered at the Centre for Language Learning (CLL) and the Department of Liberal Arts, both of the Faculty of Humanities and Education (Patois in Trinidad).
Parker said the future for the patois was not in the hands of the authorities or Government, and he does not think "they have any clue" as to the real value of foreign languages to this country or its people.
"The future of the patois depends almost entirely on the people who are most passionate about it," he commented.
He said these people included those interested in the old Carnival traditions, as the patois is deeply tied to its language, and people who were very committed to bringing it to the young people at secondary schools and at the university level. He noted that every movement, including the one to revive the patois, needs its leaders.
Betaudier said that he was unsure if the dying language could be revived because the population is so pro-English and so snobbish to "folk things". But he, like many other people, would like to see it happen.
- Next week, the Sunday Express will look at some of the efforts being made to save the local patois and some pioneers of this movement.
Patois—a living legacy
Graciela Mathieu
Published: 2 Jun 2009
C’est Quitte—The French Creoles of
Trinidad is a documentary film on
the influence of French culture on
the life and history of Trinidad.
Photo: Andre Alexander
Graciela Mathieu
In Trinidad, Patois remains a living language in some communities and families. Today, many want to see the language come alive again. “We don’t want the Patois revival movement to lead to developing a cultural or linguistics museum, but to make it living and alive,” said Dr Jo-Anne Ferreira, lecturer in Linguistics at the University of the West Indies.
The dialect actually continues to live on in the everyday speech of Trinbagonians. One of the villages where it is still spoken is Paramin, and among others are Valencia, Blanchisseuse, Morne La Croix, Toco, Avocat and Bourg Mulatress, because most of the French planters who arrived chose to settle in these areas of the island. In Trinidad, many projects have been undertaken to document and preserve the language. There are already several books documenting proverbs, stories and songs in French and French Creole (including books by John Jacob Thomas, Anthony de Verteuil, Elsie Clewes-Parsons, Nnamdi Hodge and others).
Courses in French Creole are offered at the Department of Liberal Arts, of the Faculty of Humanities and Education at the University of the West Indies. Students from this course have even joined UWI’s Asosyasyon Kweyol and assist in organising the annual UWI celebration of Jounen Kweyol, started in St Lucia in 1981, and celebrated internationally on October 28, since 1983. The entire Bible has officially been translated into Haitian French Creole, as well as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In the community of Paramin, Patois is used at the Roman Catholic mass, held every Sunday before Carnival. The mass is conducted almost entirely in the language by a native Patois-speaking priest, or one from St Lucia or Guadeloupe.
Social usefulness
“Once you learn more than two languages, the third and fourth and fifth, etc, come more easily,” said Dr Jo-Anne Ferreira. Learning another language opens up new opportunities and gives you perspective. Personal, professional, social and economic considerations all point to the advantages of learning foreign languages.
Latin link
“Interest in Patois can even help revive interest in French,” said Ferreira. The Patois was once the lingua franca of Trinidad, crossing every ethnic, social and geographic boundary. Many Patois-speakers spoke French and many French-speakers also spoke Patois. French is very close to languages such as Spanish, Portuguese and especially Italian. If you know one of these four languages, learning the others is not hard. All Latin languages share a very similar vocabulary and a similar conjugation system.
This is why learning Patois can help you to learn French and other languages and can be an opening for the world. Learning another language gives the learner the ability to step inside the mind and context of that other culture. Preserving and learning the French Creole can revive a part of Trinidad’s culture and identity. Indeed, it can also provide an opportunity to fully appreciate the world in which we live and the language spoken in it.
Joined: 10 Aug 2006 {Posts: 115 } Location: Somewhere...
Posted: Fri 24 Jul 2009 07:01 Post subject:
It would be great to see the Patios revived. My great-grandmother and grandmother spoke it. I would love to learn. It's a beautiful expression of our heritage...
It would be great to see the Patios revived. My great-grandmother and grandmother spoke it. I would love to learn. It's a beautiful expression of our heritage...
I think it also would be nice, my great grand parents and grand parents also spoke it, but by the time it got to my parents they understood very little, and when it came to me and my siblings it was gone as a language even though most Trinis would be using Patois words without even knowing it everyday.
If you do some research you can find lots of links between the Patois (or French creole ) speakers form Louisiana all the way down to Trinidad and French Guyana , also their are small groups in Venezuela and Brazil.
I have friends from St. Lucia that also speak it (even though as I understand it theirs is slightly different). Correction: I have one Lucian friend that speaks it, one that understands it but doesn't speak it and a third who just blinks and looks lost. Interesting enough he grew up with the one who speaks it and they are from the same socio-economic class.
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