Encoding path in Mauritian Creole and Bhojpuri - Laboratoire de ...

Sibylle Kriegel, Ralph Ludwig & Fabiola HenriEncoding path in Mauritian Creole and Bhojpuri Concerning the question of mutual intelligibility between Hindi and MauritianBhojpuri, 11 it is important to specify that many Mauritian Bhojpuri speakers arealso speakers of or have a (passive) competence in Hindi, 12 especially since youngergenerations learn Hindi as heritage language at school and a majority of MauritianBhojpuri speakers have access to televised programs in Hindustani (Hindi/Urdu).Thus, there is mutual comprehension, at least among certain speakers, and equallya permanent contact between Hindi and Bhojpuri in Mauritius.Contact between Mauritian Creole and Bhojpuri Creole influences on BhojpuriGenerally speaking, the tendency to replace marked features by unmarked ones(mentioned above) can be attributed either to the influence of Creole or tothe laws of orality which show a tendency towards generalizing the unmarkedform and which also govern (historical) creolization and the use of Bhojpuri inMauritius. 13However, the influence of Creole on Bhojpuri is clearly evident in the area oflexis. As will be shown in the following examples, Mauritian Bhojpuri makes useof several Creole borrowings. 14(2) a. Mauritian BhojpuriBazaar se pom anye.market apple bringb. Mauritian CreoleAmenn enn pom depi bazar.bring apple market‘Bring an apple from the market.’These processes of borrowing include the use of entire phrases which seem tobecome complex lexical items in Bhojpuri:(3) 15 a. Mauritian BhojpuriHam danbwa se nikla thain.1 forest come.from ..1b. Mauritian CreoleMo sorti dan bwa.1 come.from forest.‘I come from the forest.’However, in the area of lexis, the extent to which Bhojpuri words are replaced byCreole equivalents varies according to geographical (urban versus rural areas)and age differences. Evidently, urban and younger speakers use Creole wordsmore frequently than rural or older speakers. Thus, two sociolinguistic factorsare shown to be important when considering the evolution of the linguistic ecosystemof Mauritius: urbanization and diagenerational variation. 16 Here, we willmerely make reference to these few examples concerning lexis and will return tothe possible reciprocal influences on morphosyntax in the following paragraph, aswell as in §3. Cf. Domingue’s (1981: 52) comment concerning linguistic awareness: “Mauritian Bhojpuriis so different from Continental Bhojpuri that its speakers are not really sure that they are, indeed,speaking that language. In fact, most of them believe that they speak some patois of Hindi, verymuch like Mauritian Creole speakers believe that they speak a patois of French”. If this analysisremains true for many older speakers, the attitudes of younger generations of speakers havenevertheless changed insofar as they draw a distinction between Bhojpuri “language of the oldergeneration” for many, and Hindi, prestige language learnt at school. Our informants clarify that those who studied Hindi at school up to CPE (end of primaryeducation) have passive competence, i.e., they understand but do not speak Hindi. Those whostudy Hindi in high school have an active competence. Thus Baker & Ramnah (1985: 219 ff) mention that the function of the unmarked form ofthe noun in Mauritian Bhojpuri corresponds exactly to that of the Creole Prototype. Howeverthey are unable to determine whether this parallel is truly due to a Creole influence. Baker & Ramnah (1985: 226) estimate some 1000 Creole words in Mauritian Bhojpuri,cf. also Neerputh (1986: 11). Mesthrie (1991: 153) reports examples of the transfer of Creolelexemes to South African Bhojpuri via Mauritian Bhojpuri.2nd proofs Bhojpuri influence on CreoleIt has been shown that Bhojpuri has, for its part, left several lexical traces on Creole.Baker & Ramnah (1985: 226) cite a figure of more than 300 words of Indo-Aryanorigin in Mauritian Creole, of which the majority are probably from Bhojpuri(Kriegel & Ludwig & Henri forthcoming).During our surveys, informants brought to light the fact that certain Bhojpuriwords have been integrated into Creole, some examples being: 17 karay (‘frying We are grateful to Kumari Issur, who provided us with this example and who also drew ourattention to the fact that dan-bwa as a single word translates as “forest” and can even be replacedby lafore where Bhojpuri is used in contexts calling for a higher register. It would seem, then,that Bhojpuri borrows lexical items (lexemes) from various Creole registers. For more detailed analysis of these factors, see Díaz & Ludwig & Pfänder (2002). See Baker (1982: 314 ff.) for a methodical summary in which some of these words arefound.