mo creole
In response to Kaz's Creole - Our Mauritian Language,
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It'll not be surprising to find creole morisien being taught at school.
After all, our island is known to engender a good amount of wackos who shine in their ignorance and narrow mindedness as to believe that they can impose their way of life on about everybody. For instance, some random dude has been responsible for the creation of the "risse-moboule-aah" political party together with its assassination squad and covert training ground. Then, we have had to put up with the angst of another who has lost so much faith in the educational system that he has had to stand up against the catholic church and what has been its rightly due for generations, i.e. that its secondary institutions reserve a given percentage of admission to catholics only. The latter has even moved heaven and earth so that the language of its ethnic community is credited in the final year exam. With all this in consideration, i.e. that many of us will strive for the benefit of only those of similar ethnicity and not that of the general good, the likelihood that we do function as a nation is obviously questionable.
However, despite all these childish backstabbing, blatant protectionism, idiotic racial prejudice and "rancid stereotypes", there is that one thing that do unite us all. This is our creole. Though, birds of the same feathers do tend to flock together, fortunately for us lot, we have our creole with which some sort of bonding can be secured. Contrary to some other multicultural countries, all of us in Mru (whatever our ethnicity) can speak the local language (i.e. creole) in the most flamboyant of ways. Communication is thus not a problem for we are all indeed pure-homegrown morisien mwa! Creole, amongst other things, is what defines us all.
I'm thus proud of it but I have to admit that having creole taught is pushing it way too far. It's not as if we are facing its imminent extinction, right!?! Unlike some indigenous tribes who have suffered under the hand of the then colonial powers and have lost part of their cultural heritage and language, we have been lucky enough not to have experienced such abhorrent cleansing procedures. So, why the fuss? How will a pass or an A+ in my creole studies embellish my resume? Will I even get a job or a good pay? Or, is it simply some kind of a devious political scheme to earn a few more votes for the bonanza that is being an MP?
As Kaz has mentioned, there are so many ways of expressing one thing that standardizing the language will, in the end, be self-defeating and may be the cause of its own death. It is its free-spirited nature that after all, has enabled it to grow and flourish to such elaborate complexity and intricate nuances. Also,
Finally, if you are a passionate, then please indulge yourself in these 100% pure creole entries:
- Boukie Banane
- Boukie Banane 3
--------------------------------------------
trivial reference:
- Mauritian Creole (wikipedia)
- Creole Language (wikipedia)
- Lingua Franca (wikipedia)
- pidgin (wikipedia)
- Tu dimunn pu vini kreol: The Mauritian creole and the concept of creolization (a Lecture presented at the University of Oxford by Thomas Hylland Eriksen. It's not related but I have found it fascinating. So why not share, huh!?!)
- kreol Morisien (I think it's mostly targeted at travelers)
- Mauritian Creole Swear Words (at Insult Monger; it's really surprising the things one can find on a search engine!)
technorati tag: morisien mwa, Mauritius
Read More
It'll not be surprising to find creole morisien being taught at school.
After all, our island is known to engender a good amount of wackos who shine in their ignorance and narrow mindedness as to believe that they can impose their way of life on about everybody. For instance, some random dude has been responsible for the creation of the "risse-moboule-aah" political party together with its assassination squad and covert training ground. Then, we have had to put up with the angst of another who has lost so much faith in the educational system that he has had to stand up against the catholic church and what has been its rightly due for generations, i.e. that its secondary institutions reserve a given percentage of admission to catholics only. The latter has even moved heaven and earth so that the language of its ethnic community is credited in the final year exam. With all this in consideration, i.e. that many of us will strive for the benefit of only those of similar ethnicity and not that of the general good, the likelihood that we do function as a nation is obviously questionable.
However, despite all these childish backstabbing, blatant protectionism, idiotic racial prejudice and "rancid stereotypes", there is that one thing that do unite us all. This is our creole. Though, birds of the same feathers do tend to flock together, fortunately for us lot, we have our creole with which some sort of bonding can be secured. Contrary to some other multicultural countries, all of us in Mru (whatever our ethnicity) can speak the local language (i.e. creole) in the most flamboyant of ways. Communication is thus not a problem for we are all indeed pure-homegrown morisien mwa! Creole, amongst other things, is what defines us all.
I'm thus proud of it but I have to admit that having creole taught is pushing it way too far. It's not as if we are facing its imminent extinction, right!?! Unlike some indigenous tribes who have suffered under the hand of the then colonial powers and have lost part of their cultural heritage and language, we have been lucky enough not to have experienced such abhorrent cleansing procedures. So, why the fuss? How will a pass or an A+ in my creole studies embellish my resume? Will I even get a job or a good pay? Or, is it simply some kind of a devious political scheme to earn a few more votes for the bonanza that is being an MP?
As Kaz has mentioned, there are so many ways of expressing one thing that standardizing the language will, in the end, be self-defeating and may be the cause of its own death. It is its free-spirited nature that after all, has enabled it to grow and flourish to such elaborate complexity and intricate nuances. Also,
The resistance to Kreol can be traced to three causes:
First, it is still widely regarded as "the poor cousin of French", as an impoverished, shallow and context-dependent idiom.
Secondly, its wider use at the expense of French and English might strengthen Mauritius’ isolation, since it is only spoken in Mauritius and the Seychelles.
Thirdly, Kreol is still vaguely associated with the Creole ethnic group and/or creolisation as it is understood locally, and Kreol thus has some connotations in identity politics. Interestingly, few of the activists who have struggled for recognition of Kreol are Creoles in ethnic terms; they must nevertheless be seen as creoles in analytical terms -- like in the European left, some are in favour of strong versions of multiculturalism, while others reject cultural tradition altogether as a source of personal identity.
Finally, if you are a passionate, then please indulge yourself in these 100% pure creole entries:
- Boukie Banane
- Boukie Banane 3
--------------------------------------------
trivial reference:
- Mauritian Creole (wikipedia)
- Creole Language (wikipedia)
- Lingua Franca (wikipedia)
- pidgin (wikipedia)
- Tu dimunn pu vini kreol: The Mauritian creole and the concept of creolization (a Lecture presented at the University of Oxford by Thomas Hylland Eriksen. It's not related but I have found it fascinating. So why not share, huh!?!)
- kreol Morisien (I think it's mostly targeted at travelers)
- Mauritian Creole Swear Words (at Insult Monger; it's really surprising the things one can find on a search engine!)
technorati tag: morisien mwa, Mauritius
posted by waz at 9:39 AM
3 Comments:
He went incognito during the whole of the blog: non b bizin denonce li: He's born in mauritius, he's got a girl who should be going to Form 2 next year, n he has been screaming a lot when his daughter was doing her CPE. Tengur si pa ki mo g****, satyadeo tengur.
I read one newspaper article [5-plus] last year. I forgot what arguments he put forward to justify the need to make oriental languages contribute to overall score.
Catholic school leaders should invite him to the school choir (chorale). He'll be completely pissed off as he discovers he was really 'shining in his ignorance', he'll instantly get it why a catholic school needs its percentage of christian students. He'll then ask for black shoe polish to reduce the 'shine' on his face.
lol
well said
yeah it could be as you said for political motives and vices but I think that would be a good thing to do atleast teaching kids upto the 6th standard. It's just because nowadays many *modern* or considering them modern parents talk french or *even English* at home for I don't know what fucky reasons. When they have a child, he is more acquainted with those 2 languages than our national creol. In some near future one might see many kids not knowing how to speak creol and thus we might be losing our own creol this time not by colonial pressure but due to our own self-bragging ;(
Personally I don't think we should be teaching kids creol, by this I mean the structure of the language(grammar etc) since that would only mess their heads and confuse them but by teaching I would prefer having only some books like some literature one in the creole language. so for some classes kids would be reading a story book in their native creole language. by this many Mauritian authors could then have a more prospective future in the Mauritian's Literature......
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