A Harmonized Writing System for the Mauritian Creole Language

A harmonized writing systemfor the Mauritian Creole Language

Grafi-larmoni

Vinesh Y Hookoomsing

September 2004

1Introduction

In the history of humanity, language codification in written form goes back to the earlydays of civilization when the first writing system was invented in Mesopotamia. At aboutthe same time, the Egyptian hieroglyphs and the Chinese ideograms representedadvanced systems of written communication. Then came the invention by the Pheniciansof the first alphabet.

From the parchment to the printed book

: the first knowledge revolution that startedthe slow but steady process of democratization of knowledge and information isattributed to Gutenberg’s invention of printing. But well before Gutenberg, the first printed book appeared in China around 1390.

From the printed to the eletronic medium

: the latest knowledge revolution hasabolished the barriers of time and space, making information and communicationimmediately accessible in real time anywhere, any time.

From the first printing machine in 18

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Mauritius to desktop publishing

: severalmillennia of language and technological evolution have been compressed in threecenturies, the time it took for the Mauritian Creole language (MCL) to free itself from theshackles of history and become the most popular SMS and internet medium. A product of language contact, innovation and creativity in extreme human and social conditions,MCL evolved rapidly to become within such a short time the first language par excellence of the Mauritian linguistic community. Independence and the need for nationalsymbols gave a new destiny to MCL as the language of national unity and the marker of our distinctiveness. Ever since, the task of codification and standardization of MCL has been on our agenda. The work accomplished through individual and group initiatives hasalready taken the language quite a long way on the road towards formal recognition. Itrepresents a considerable achievement which must be duly acknowledged

2Writing Mauritian Creole: a brief historical perspective

How best to write Mauritian Creole?

The relevance of Philip Baker’s question, raised in1978, was self-evident (see below for more details). No one would imagine that in theearly years of 19

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century Mauritius, such an idea would come to the mind of a colonialwriter naturally belonging to the dominant Francophone group. Indeed the earliest writtentraces of MCL and comments on the language invariably referred to the language as theslave’s patois or broken French. As early as 1749,

Baron Grant

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in one of his lettersfrom 18

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century Ile de France, refers to a group of slaves pointing towards the horizonand exclaiming “in their corrupted French, ça blanc là li beaucoup malin; li couri beaucoup dans la mer là-haut; mais Madagascar li là.”

Bernardin de St Pierre

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, in his letters contained in the

Voyage à l’Ile de France

published in 1773, gives a brief account of his encounter with a slave boatman : “LePatron me dit dans son mauvais patois : ‘ça n’a pas bon Monsié’. Je lui demandai s’il yavoit quelque danger, il me répondit : ‘Si nous n’a pas gagné malheur, ça bon’.”

C Thomi Pitot

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(1805), in his refutation of B de St Pierre’s account of slavery in

Voyageà l’Ile de France

, has recourse to an imaginary conversation in Creole with a slave to portray the latter, ‘un noir mozambique, entre la fleur et la vigueur de l’âge, paré d’unsimple

langoutis (un linge autour des reins)’

, as a happy man well treated by his master.

Freycinet

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(1827), who visited Mauritius in 1818, refers for his part to the ‘patois inventé par les noirs’ and comments on the potential linguistic value of ‘les règles de cettelangue’:

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Source: “The History of Mauritius, or the Isle de France, etc., composed principally from the papers andmemoirs of Baron Grant, who resided twenty years in the island, by his son Charles Grant, Viscount deVaux”.1801, London. Reprinted by Asian Educational Services, New Delhi, 1995, p. 297

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Bernardin de St Pierre,

Voyage à l’Ile de France

, I, 257, Paris, 1773.

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C. Thomi Pitot, “Quelques observations sur l’ouvrage intitulé

Voyage à l’Ile de France par un officier du Roi

” presented to the Société d’Emulation de l’Ile de France on 3 August 1805.

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Louis de Freycinet,

Voyage autour du monde

, tome 1, vol. 2, p. 406, Paris, 1827.