Mauritian Creole

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Mauritian Creole

Mauritian Creole
a.k.a. "Morisyen"

A Look at
Mauritian Creole
"Morisyen"
by Bethanie Morrissey
designed by
Bethanie Morrissey
&
Evelyn Hill
SIU CARBONDALE View of the harbour of
Port Louis

The tiny island of Mauritius has been called a "melting pot" and its linguistic situation is very complex. While English is the official language of parliament, traffic regulations, and school administration, it is spoken by only 3% of the population. French is the native language of Franco-mauritians and is used by the mass media. Eighty percent of the newspapers are written in French, which also dominates the advertising field. Mauritian Creole, or MC, is the national language and is spoken by the majority of Mauritians. Nearly the entire population knows and uses MC for communication.
Adone, D. (1994) The Aquisition of Mauritian Creole. Amsterdam: John Benjamins

                Recipes!
The majority of MC words are of French origin, although more than 150 are derived from English, more than 50 from Indian languages, and several from Malagasy and Chinese.
Sebba, M. (1997) Contact Languages: Pidgins and Creoles. St Martins Press.
Like many French-lexicon creoles, MC words often incorporate the article as part of the form of the word. For example: "liver" (winter), derives from the French "l'hiver", and "dilo" (water) from "de l'eau". There is some disagreement as to the presence of a definite article in MC. According to Sebba (1997, p.144), there is none, but according to Adone, (1994, p.30) there is.

A Little History

Mauritius was uninhabited when it was discovered the Portuguese in 1512, but it was not settled until the next century. The Dutch took possession of the island in 1598 and named it Mauritius after Maurice of Nassau. The Dutch attempted to settle the island but eventually abandoned it in 1710, leaving behind a few runaway slaves. In 1715 the French East India company claimed Mauritius and renamed it Isle de France. In 1721 some settlers were sent from Reunion to Mauritius. Between 1727 and 1730 the slave population on Mauritius grew from about 30 (all Malagasies) to about 1000, 600 of whom were from West Africa, speaking mainly Wolof, Fon, and Bambara. The rest came from India, speaking Tamil and Bengali, or from Madagascar, speaking Malagasy.
From 1735 to 1760, the two major sources of slaves were Madagascar and East Africa. By 1777, the population had risen to almost 30,000, of which 11% were white, 85% were slaves, and the remaining 4% were freedmen.
There was an influx of settlers from the Caribbean area from 1787 to 1797. Then in 1814, the British captured Mauritius during the Napoleanic wars. After emancipation in 1835, indentured laborers were brought in from India in such massive numbers that by 1865, they and their descendants made up two-thirds of the island's population. The population as of 1984 was over 1,000,000.
Holm, J. (1989) Pidgins and creoles, Vol II. Cambridge Language Series. NY: Cambridge.

Let's take a look at Morisyen (Mauritian Creole).

1.) First, some basics. MC has two forms of pronouns, nominative and oblique:

mo 'I' mwa 'me'

to 'you' twa 'you'

li 's/he' li 'her/him'

nu 'we' nu 'us'

u 'you' u 'you'

zot 'they' zot 'them'

2.) In MC there are two articles and two demonstratives:

en 'a'

la 'the'

sa 'this'

san 'that'

University of Mauritius
Example:

San lakaz nef.

that house new

'That house is new.'

3.) Using the French pronoun 'qui' in conjunctionwith the words for cause, time, and manner, MC creates bimorphemic question-words:

ki fer 'why'

ki manyer 'how'

ki ler 'when'

Example:

Kimanyer ki     zot   ti      fer.

how         that they TNS do

'How did they do that?'

4.) Modality is MC is expressed by 'pu' and by this list of verbs:

kapav can/to be able to

bizen must/ought to

ule want/wish

anvi want/wish

kon know how

5.) The TMA system of MC (Tense, Modality, and Aspect) are marked* by the following:
        ti (anterior)

Zan ti      byen bezer.

Zan TNS very   bad

'Zan was very bad.' (hmmm!)

      pe (non-punctuality)

Mo pe maz diri.

I ASP eat    rice

'I am eating rice.'

        fin (completion)

Mo misie      fin     al Kandos.

my husband ASP go Kandos

'My husband has gone to Kandos.'

      pu (definite future)

Nu pu      envit zot   pu mariaz.

we MOD invite them for wedding

'We will invite them for the wedding.'

      ava (indefinite future)

Mo ava   al get     li       si mo kapav.

I   MOD go see him/her if I    can

'I will visit him/her if I can.'

      fek (immediate completive actions)

Mo fin    fek   dir twa avoy zot    fer     fut.

I    ASP ASP tell you send them don't give-a-damn

'I have just told you to send them to hell!' (see "dealing with tourists.")

      ti pe (past progressive)

Lapli ti pe tonbe.

rain TNS ASP fall

'Rain was falling.'

      ti fin ( completedness in the past)

Ler mo ti      rant dan labutik li    ti        fin ale.

when I TNS come in shop s/he TNS ASP go

'When I entered the shop she had gone.'

      ti pu (conditional)

Nu   ti         pu   aste sa      si li      pa      ti     warn nu.

we TNS MOD buy DEM if s/he NEG TNS warn us

'We would have bought this if he had not warned us.'

        ti ava (conditional)

Mo ti       a     fer sa    pu twa si mo ti    ena   letan.

I TNS MOD do DET for you if   I TNS have time

'I would have done that for you if only I had had time.'

      ti fek (recent past)

Li      ti      fek lipupul ar mwa.

s/he TNS ASP fussy with me

'S/he was just fussy with me.'

Mauritian News!

        *Verbs are left unmarked to express habituality:

Mo al travay lor bisiklet tulematen.

I    go work on bicycle every day

'I go to work on my bicycle every day.'

6.) Mauritian Creole has the SVO word order pattern:

Zot     ti manz en    pom.

they TNS eat DET apple

'They ate an apple.'

Li     ti     al   lafrans.

s/he TNS go France

'S/he went to France.'

7.) MC allows multiple negation:

Oken lisyen pa      fin   mord oken sat.

no       dog NEG ASP bite    no   cat

'No dog has bitten any cat.'

8.) MC does not have a copula:

Sa    zanfan   la      ti     move.

DEM child DET TNS naughty

'This child was naughty.'

Now, test yourself. If you can speak Standard French, using that and the info above, you should be able to translate the following rather familiar poem with ease. Good Luck!

Nou Papa
Nou Papa ki dan le siel
Fer rekonet ki to nom sin,
Fer ki to regn vini,
Fer to volonte akompli,
Lor la terre koman dan le siel.
Donn nou azordi di pin ki nou bizin.
Pardonn-nou nou bann ofans,
Koman nou osi pardonn le zot
ki fin ofans nou.
Pa less nou tom dan tentation
Me tir-nu depi lemal.
Contributed by Filip Fanchette -

Fly Away Home!

And now for something completely different. . . .

Poor endangered pigeon: The "Pigeon des Mares" is still alive and kicking thanks to efforts of a captive breeding program. Many of the little guys have already been released back into the wild and are doing great.

This page designed and built by Evelyn Hill and Bethanie Morrissey. Contact Bethanie at bethanie@siu.edu.

Page made and maintained by
Thomas Leverett, CESL, SIUC

This page originally was made here at SIUC and was put at http://www.siu.edu/cwis/departments/cola/ling/reports/mauritian_creole. html by those whose names are listed on it. The JPCL and all of its files were transferred to Ohio State around 2000; a few years later SIUC purged the JPCL web file due to inactivity. This page was restored from the Wayback web archive (http://web.archive.org/web/) and still has some of the archives' code in it; thus some of its pictures and links come from those archived files. We are grateful to the archive for saving what we had lost. -TL