PARLEZ-VOUS FRENGLISH?
THE POLITICS OF LANGUAGE IN MAURITIUS.
By WILLIAM MILES
Whether or not to make English the official language
is becoming an increasingly politicized issue in the United States. Although
our Constitution doesn't address the question of language, nine state legislatures
and countless local governments have passed resolutions prescribing the
use of English for administrative purposes within their jurisdictions.
Bilingual education and the related Ebonics debate are other controversial
issues joining language and politics in this country.
To gain a comparative vantage on the politics
of language, last year I conducted a full year of research-thanks to the
Fulbright scholarship program and Northeastern-on the island of Mauritius
in the Indian Ocean. Mauritius, an independent nation equivalent to Rhode
Island in size and population, is recognized more by ornithologists (for
the long-extinct dodo bird) and by philat-
elists (for the priceless "Mauritian Blue"
postal stamp) than by political scientists and sociologists. But when it
comes to the politics of language, Mauritius has much to offer other multicultural
societies of immigrant origin.
A former French colony that was conquered by the
British in 1810 and became independent in 1968, Mauritius has drawn its
people from India, Africa, China, and Europe. Today, there are more Christians
than Muslims, but more Hindus than adherents of those other two religions
combined. As in America, nineteenth-century slavery has bequeathed a minority
population of African ancestry (the Creoles).
The only language that all Mauritians speak is
Kreol, a derivative of the French language similar to that spoken in Louisiana
and Haiti. Educated and upwardly mobile Mauritians speak French, which
is also the language of the electronic media and newspapers. In public
schools young Mauritians of Indian origin study, as electives, any one
of half a dozen "ancestral languages" (for example, Hindi or
Tamil). Muslim pupils can take Arabic and Sino-Mauritian students can study
Mandarin Chinese. The one language that very few Mauritians actually speak
is the country's only official language: English. Even more surprising
is that English is the medium of instruction for all nonlanguage classes
in the public schools. It is also the language of the courts and of government
administration.
In other parts of the world, competition between
the French and English languages is usually portrayed-particularly in France
and Canada-as a zero-sum game. English is thought to be "eating up"
French, thereby contributing to the monolithic and homogenizing tendencies
of American-led globalization. Laws have been passed in Quebec and France
to stymie the linguistic anglicization of these two societies.
Mauritius represents an interesting exception
to the general rule of Anglo-French linguistic rivalry. For one thing,
it is the only country in the world where French is making headway vis-à-vis
English. Even more importantly, there is no conflict between Mauritian
speakers of the two languages. Given that the French language was long
associated with the original colonial (and slave-owning) rulers and English
was favored by the elite of the (now majority) Indian population, such
linguistic harmony between English and French is remarkable. But Mauritians
are a pragmatic people. They realize it is to their advantage to master
as many languages as possible. A foreign language is regarded not as a
threat but as an opportunity.
As a result of this linguistic cohabitation, Mauritians
freely shift in their everyday conversation between French and English.
Linguists call this phenomenon "code-switching." Mauritian journalists
and advertising copywriters, reflecting the dual linguistic nature of their
society, also habitually codeswitch. While the result would offend linguistic
purists elsewhere, in laid-back Mauritius code-switching in print is run-of-the-mill.
In a farewell lecture to the Mahatma Gandhi Institute
in the town of Moka, I dubbed this phenomenon "Frenglish" and
identified ten categories of usage. My favorite categories-because they
result in the most interesting portmanteau phrases-are those of legal terminology
and economics/business/advertising. Here are some examples:
"Tout à below cost price moins encore
35% . . . first come first serve" ["Everything below cost price
minus another 35% . . . first come, first served"-an advertisement]
"Dos and Don'ts des seins" ["Dos
and don'ts of breasts"-from a woman's health column]
"[Le suspect] parvint à tromper la
vigilance des policers lors d'un exercice de Controlled Delivery . . .
Elle a été remanded to police cell jusqu'à sa prochaine
comparution en cour" ["The suspect succeeded in dodging the attention
of the police during a drug drop-off . . . She was remanded to a holding
cell until her next court appearance"-crime blotter]
"Une habitante de Chemin-Grenier a accusé
son epoux de l'avoir brûlée vive dans un Dying Statement"
["A villager accused her spouse of having burned her alive in a dying
statement"-news item (even in death one can't escape Frenglish)]
"[Le] ministre de la Justice a déclaré
qu'il faut barrer la route aux Cold-blooded murderers" ["The
justice minister declared that we must prevent the acting of cold-blooded
murderers"-news item (criminals apparently sound more vicious in English
than in French)]
"Stud 100-a new, practical, and safe desensitizing
spray for Men . . . Faites Durer Le Plaisir! Available Now at Your Nearest
Pharmacy" [no comment]
My original thesis was that English-French bilingualism
constituted a key factor in Mauritius's successful development. Yet after
only a few days in the country, I realized how inadequate that framework
was. For even though French and English are the languages of business and
power in Mauritius, the political importance of the Asian ancestral languages
also has to be taken into account. My research agenda therefore extended
from a manageable case study of bilingualism to a more intricate investigation
of the politics of multilingualism.
Balancing all the European and Asian languages
is a very delicate task for Mauritian policymakers. Most of them tend to
follow the advice of the nation's founding father, who advised future leaders
not to meddle in two potentially explosive domains: religion and language.
(When the prime minister in 1995 deviated from this advice by proposing
to give Indian languages added importance in the examinations determining
entry into secondary school, he wound up losing office.)
The success of English lies in its being a "neutral"
language, one that is used for functional purposes but with which no ethnic
or religious community identifies emotionally. As for the most widely spoken
language, Kreol, most Mauritians don't even recognize it as a language
at all, nor are they upset that it is not taught in school.
Tinkering with the linguistic status quo is ill-advised
in Mauritius and, I would argue, for the United States as well. Mauritians
don't feel the need to legislate linguistic change, for they are language
innovators. Rather than feeling threatened by other languages, Mauritians
embrace them, regarding multilingualism as part of their national heritage
and consistent with their society's immigrant origins. Without challenging
the primacy of English in their legislative, judicial, and educational
institutions, Mauritians freely use other languages for business, social,
and family interactions. It is ironic that English, perceived to be swallowing
other languages on a global scale, is seen to require legislative protection
in the United States. If English can hold its own in multilingual Mauritius,
surely it can do so in multicultural America.
William Miles is a professor in the department
of political science.
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