Lang
Manman
Nou
St.Lucia's Queen of Culture the Late Dame Marie Selipha Descartes
PRESERVING
OURMOTHER
TONGUE
K
flavor to our posts. Every St.Lucian will
perhaps concur that certain jokes, words and
expressions are better spoken and enjoyed in
our mother tongue — Kwéyòl.
But, speaking the language so openly and
without “embarrassment” has not always been
wéyòl, Kéwòl, Patois, Patwa and
French Creole is a French patois
based on a mixture of African and
French grammar, and a vocabulary of mostly French
or perhaps still is the case. For many years
there has been a sense of “shame” in speaking
kwéyòl and many folks have expressed being
forbidden to speak it in their formative years.
with some English and Spanish words. If you are a
social media junkie like me then you’ve probably In fact, Jn.Pierre in a 2003:28 report wrote,
noticed the many different spellings that we use for the “Kwéyòl has been stigmatized, neglected and
same word in creole. Many of us on social media marginalized officially but the language has
platforms like Facebook, use the language liberally, demonstrated a resilience that has ensured its
primarily for legibility reasons and to add um, a little survival regardless of the odds”.