Langbahn Team – Weltmeisterschaft

Seychellois Creole

This article is about the language. For the people, see Seychellois Creole people.
Seychellois Creole
kreol, seselwa
Native toSeychelles
EthnicitySeychellois Creoles
Native speakers
(73,000 cited 1998)[1]
Dialects
Latin
Official status
Official language in
 Seychelles
Regulated byLenstiti Kreol
Language codes
ISO 639-3crs
Glottologsese1246
Linguasphere(& -ceb) 51-AAC-cea (& -ceb)
Location of Seychelles where the creole is spoken
Sign in Seychellois Creole, La Digue. Ede pou kit La Digue prop silvouple, meaning "Please help to keep La Digue clean."

Seychellois Creole (/seɪˈʃɛlwɑː/), also known as Kreol, Seselwa Creole French, and Seselwa Creole is the French-based creole language spoken by the Seychelles Creole people of the Seychelles. It shares national language status with English and French (in contrast to Mauritian and Réunion Creole, which lack official status in Mauritius and France).

History

The Seychelles were first settled in 1770, by French settlers from the island of Mauritius. The islands population was mostly made up of slaves with a few whites and free blacks. Over time the Mauritian creole that was spoken by the slave population diverged enough from Mauritian Creole to be considered its own creole separate from Mauritian Creole. It further diverged after the freeing of Seychelles slaves in 1835 and the subsequent influx of Bantu peoples from East Africa to the islands.[2]

49 fables of La Fontaine were adapted to the dialect around 1900 by Rodolphine Young (1860–1932) but these remained unpublished until 1983.[3]

Status

The Seychelles gained independence in 1976 and since 1978 Seychellois Creole has been one of the country's three official languages. It is currently the native language of over 99% of the country's population.[2] Seychellois Creole is the primary language of music, literature, politics, public usage, and mass media in the Seychelles. Though Seychellois literature has been increasingly replaced by English literature.[4]

While Seychellois laws are written in English, the working language of the National Assembly is Creole and the verbatim record of its meetings provides an extensive corpus for its contemporary use in a formal setting.[5]

On June 27th 2024 Google announced it would be adding Seychellois Creole to Google Translate. Later Seychellois Creole was added under the name Seselwa Creole French.[6]

Morphology and syntax

Seychellois Creole follows in subject verb object word order.[2]

Pronouns

Pronouns in Seychellois Creole fall into three categories: dependent subject, independent subject, and adnominal possessive, with there being no gender distinctions. dependent pronouns can only be subjects not objects but independent pronouns can be both.[2]

dependent independent adnominal possessive
1st singular mon mwan mon
2nd singular ou ou ou
3rd singular i li son
1st plural nou nou nou
2nd plural zot zot zot
3rd plural zot zot zot

Verbs

Verbs in Seychellois Creole take one of two forms, long and short. Short verbs are used when the verb is directly followed by a noun or when an adverb is present and the long verbs being used otherwise.[2]

Long Vs Short verbs[2]
Long Verb Short Verb
retourn-en retourn
donn-en donn
sant-e sant

Causative voice are marked by the word fer (make) while Reflexive voice is marked with either the express lack of a marking; or the words li, mekor, and limenm.[2]

Dialects

There is some variation in the language spoken in the Seychelles based on geography with limited differences in morphosyntax and lexicon, but not enough to speak of separate dialects.[4] The only distinct non-standard dialect of Seychellois Creole is Chagossian Creole spoken by Chagossians in the United Kingdom, Mauritius, and the Seychelles.[7]

Lexicon

In several Seychellois Creole words derived from French, the French definite article (le, la and les) has become part of the word; for example, 'future' is lavenir (French l'avenir). The possessive is the same as the pronoun, so that 'our future' is nou lavenir. Similarly in the plural, les Îles Éloignées Seychelles in French ('the Outer Seychelles Islands') has become Zil Elwanyen Sesel in Creole. Note the z in Zil, as, in French, les Îles is pronounced /le.z‿il/.

Language Word
Creole Nou tou bezwen travay ansanm pou kre nou lavenir
French (IPA) /nu‿z/ /a.vɔ̃/ /tus/ /bə.zwɛ̃/ /də/ /tʁa.va.je/ /ɑ̃.sɑ̃bl/ /puʁ/ /kʁe.e/ /nɔtʁ/ /av.niʁ/
French Nous avons tous besoin de travailler ensemble pour créer notre avenir
Translation We all need to work together to create our future
Gloss We have all need to work together for create our future

Loanwords

Percentages of loanwords from different languages in different word types[8]
English French Eastern Bantu Malagasy Indian Languages Portuguese Can languages Chinese Arabic Unknown Total Loanwords Non loanwords
Nouns 5.6% 2.6% 2% 1.3% 0.9% 0.7% 0.3% 0.1% 0.1% 1.1% 14.6% 85.4%
Verbs 2.4% 0.2% 0.2% 0.8% 0.2% 0.2% 4.1% 95.9%
Adjectives 2.2% 1.6% 1.4% 2.2% 7.3% 92.7%
Adverbs 0% 100%
Function Words 0.9% 0.9% 99.1%
total 4.2% 1.6% 1.4% 1.2% 0.9% 0.4% 0.2% 0.1% 0.1% 0.7% 10.7% 89.3%

Among loanwords in Seychellois Creole they have different frequencies words for the modern world, warfare/hunting, food and drink, animals, and the home show loanword rates over 10 percent. while words relating to cognition, emotions, social and political relationships, and the physical world show no loanwords.[8]

Samples

(Lord's Prayer)

Seychellois Creole English
Ou, nou papa ki dan lesyel,
Fer ou ganny rekonnet konman Bondye.
Ki ou renny i arive.
Ki ou lavolonte i ganny realize
Lo later parey i ete dan lesyel
Donn nou sak zour nou dipen ki nou bezwen.
Pardonn nou pour bann lofans
Ki noun fer anver ou,
Parey nou pardonn sa ki n ofans nou.
Pa les tantasyon domin nou,
Me tir nou dan lemal.
 Our Father who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy name;
thy kingdom come;
Thy will be done on earth
as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our trespasses,
 
as we forgive those who trespass against us,
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.

Notes

  1. ^ Seychellois Creole at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ a b c d e f g "APiCS Online - Survey chapter: Seychelles Creole". apics-online.info. Retrieved 2024-10-06.
  3. ^ Fables de La Fontaine traduites en créole seychellois, Hamburg, 1983; there is also a selection at Potomitan.info
  4. ^ a b Michaelis, Susanne Maria; Rosalie, Marcel (2013), "Seychelles Creole structure dataset", Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures Online, Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, retrieved 2024-10-08
  5. ^ National Assembly - Hansard - Verbatim
  6. ^ "Launching New Languages". 27 June 2024.
  7. ^ Arends, Jacques; Muysken, Pieter; Smither, Norval (1994). 26. An annotated list of creoles, pidgins and mixed languages. John Benjamins Publishing Company. p. 347.
  8. ^ a b Tadmor, Uri; Haspelmath, Martin (2009-12-22). Loanwords in the World's Languages: A Comparative Handbook. Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter Mouton. p. 222. doi:10.1515/9783110218442. ISBN 9783110218442. OCLC 642692803.

References

  • Annegret Bollée. 1977a. Le créole français des Seychelles: Esquisse d’une grammaire, textes, vocabulaire. Tübingen: Niemeyer.
  • D'Offay, Danielle & Lionnet, Guy, Diksyonner Kreol - Franse / Dictionnaire Créole Seychellois - Français. Helmut Buske Verlag, Hamburg. 1982. ISBN 3-87118-569-8.
Quelle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seychellois_Creole