"A picturesque language, humorous and very pliable": descriptions of French-based Creole languages in travel guidebooks Philipp Krämer
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64
“A picturesque language, humorous and very pliable”: descriptions of
French-based Creole languages in travel guidebooks
Philipp Krämer Magdalena von Sicard
Viadrina University Frankfurt (Oder) University of Cologne
pkraemer@europa-uni.de magdalena.v.sicard@gmx.de
Abstract
This article examines the descriptions of French-based Creole languages in travel
guidebooks for major tourist destinations in the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean. In a
corpus of 63 guidebooks spanning over the past 20 years, we extract elements of
metalinguistic discourse about the history and characteristics of Creole languages. We
show that guidebooks draw on stereotypical and exoticizing views of these languages
which can largely be traced back to colonial times. The analysis highlights three areas
of tension which the guidebooks have to handle when trying to provide accurate
descriptions while simultaneously answering to the desire for otherness in tourism.
Ultimately, the metalinguistic comments in guidebooks are embedded in a logic of
commodification of language which is widespread in the context of tourism.
Keywords: Creole languages, travel guidebooks, tourism, language ideologies,
stereotypes.
1. Introduction
Many Creole-speaking countries and territories attract significant numbers of
international travellers.1 For most tourists, travelling to these places is one of the very
rare occasions to come into close contact with Creole languages; some of them may not
even have heard of Creole languages before. Vacationers will most likely communicate
with locals in another language such as English or French and not acquire any extensive
knowledge of the Creole. Nevertheless, before and during their stay, they can form an
idea of what these languages look and sound like. Apart from their direct auditory or
visual impressions and conversations with locals, travellers may look for more detailed
information. Even in the digital era, classical print guidebooks are still one of the most
important sources of information about local life, languages included.
In many Creole-speaking societies, linguistic insecurity and standard language
ideology remain strong, with considerable consequences for social stratification and
educational success (Migge, Léglise & Bartens 2010; Krämer 2017; Stein 2017: 51–53;
1
We would like to thank the editors of the journal and the two anonymous reviewers for
their support and their helpful comments on the first version of this paper. This paper
also greatly benefitted from the discussions at the 2019 summer conference of the
Society for Pidgin and Creole Linguistics in Lisbon where we had the occasion to
present some preliminarly findings of this project.
Journal of Postcolonial Linguistics, 3(2020), 64–88“A picturesque language, humorous and very pliable”: 65
descriptions of French-based Creole languages in travel guidebooks
Hüning & Krämer 2018: 10–16). Tourists are often speakers of the former colonial
languages in their dominant standard form and as such, they may be seen as carrying a
certain authority over the use of the prestigious languages. Especially when in contact
with local speakers, their perspective on the local linguistic setup, the properties of
Creole languages and their relation with the dominant languages can contribute to either
rebalancing power relations or, in the worst case, to entrenching existing hierarchies.
The metalinguistic views which tourists reflect when encountering Creole speakers can
be an influential contribution to either enhancing or overcoming linguistic insecurity.
Having a sound basic knowledge of the local historical, cultural and also linguistic
specificities is paramount to a respectful and sensitive behaviour of travellers when
interacting with Creole speakers.
One decisive factor in this is the fact that guidebooks are usually authored by
outsiders, many of them professional travel authors. Such a setting is reminiscent of the
earliest metalinguistic sources about Creole languages which were typically written by
missionaries and other travellers for a European readership (Chaudenson 1981; Hazaël-
Massieux 2008; Valdman 2015: 410; Sousa, Mücke & Krämer 2019: 3–5). As a
consequence, the speakers’ voices and perspectives will typically be represented
indirectly, if at all. The authority to assess the properties of Creole languages, then, is
claimed by non-locals and directed at a non-local public (the same is true for many
other evaluations of local characteristics often included in guidebooks, see Peel &
Sørensen 2016: 54). This is a significant difference from other efforts in tourism where
communities themselves display “cultural distinctiveness”, for example linguistic
difference, as part of a bulk of “attractions in which collective identities are represented,
interpreted, and potentially constructed through the use of [...] culture” (Pitchford 2008:
3).
Travel guidebooks “posit elements of knowledge as relevant” and provide “routines
of orientation” according to the authors’ anticipation of their readership’s expectations
(Fandrych & Thurmair 2010: 163). Peel and Sørensen (2016: 195–196) report that
travellers value the information in guidebooks as reliable and thoroughly researched,
making them an authoritative source as opposed to less trustworthy or subjective
information to be found online. Since the way readers perceive the language—and in
connection with it, its speakers—will be shaped by the way it is described in the
guidebook, these sources are worth an in-depth analysis.2
A large body of research is available about the contents, functions and impact of
travel guidebooks from many perspectives, stretching from tourism marketing to critical
postcolonial analyses. Many works use approaches from linguistics such as corpus
methods, concepts from text linguistics or semantics to analyze the books and the way
2
Previous research has shown that the popularity of travel guidebooks for the
preparation of a trip differs from one culture to another: German travellers tend to use
them more than French and British travellers (Gursoy & Chen 2000: 589), American
travellers more than travellers from China (Osti, Turner & King 2009: 68). However,
the goal of this article is not to quantify the effective impact of the language
descriptions so that we will not take such differences into consideration in our study.Philipp Krämer & Magdalena von Sicard 66
they present places, people and cultures. However, the language descriptions in the
books themselves rarely receive specific attention (Cordeiro 2011 is one of the rare
exceptions). This paper systematically examines the passages in travel guidebooks
which describe Creole languages.
The analysis will revolve around two central questions: whether or not the books
perpetuate stereotypes about Creoles and to what extent they contribute to notions of
otherness (van Gorp 2012). Where appropriate, we will additionally show some lines of
historic continuity in the way the languages are depicted. Our analysis sets out to show
how the descriptions create several areas of friction between the aspirations to give an
accurate account of the languages and the need to present them as part of a promising
travel experience. In the conclusion, we will briefly connect the findings to previous
research about the role of language in tourism, and more particularly the idea of a
“commodification of language” in the travel industry (Heller, Jaworski & Thurlow
2014; Heller, Pujolar & Duchêne 2014). As previous research has shown, in the context
of tourism, languages are frequently established as commodities, that is, as elements of
commercial transactions. For instance, offering services or products in the customers’
preferred languages can contribute to increased profit. In the case of Creole languages,
however, the languages themselves are presented as part of the destination’s
specificities and this way integrated in the attributes of the product offered for
consumption. Our analysis will show that this has consequences for the impact which
the language descriptions can have.
2. Corpus and methodology
The corpus under analysis in this article is built up from a total number of 63 books
written in English, French, and German (see table 1). These books fit the definition of a
travel guidebook as described by Peel and Sørensen (2016: 29):
“A travel guidebook is a commercially distributed entity, made for transient
non-locals to be used in the field. It contains place representations and is
comprehensive as it includes practical information beyond that of a special
interest subject. Yet, it is selective, and by evaluating more than just listing
it facilitates a selection process. Authority is asserted through sender
identity and through the potential to contend ‘official’ information.”3
Our paper focuses on books about territories and countries in which French-based
Creole languages are spoken. The majority of the books feature islands in the Indian
Ocean while the Caribbean is less represented. This is due to the fact that the French
West Indies attract fewer tourists from English- or German-speaking countries than e.g.
3
The last criterion in the definition sets guidebooks apart from publications with a
distinct marketing purpose such as brochures distributed by tourist boards and similar
institutions.“A picturesque language, humorous and very pliable”: 67
descriptions of French-based Creole languages in travel guidebooks
Mauritius or the Seychelles so that guidebooks written in these languages are relatively
rare.4
The corpus comprises books from the past 20 years with roughly half of them being
the most recent editions in the respective series (see figure 1). Among the books in the
corpus, there were 14 pairs composed of the newest edition and an older one of the
same type from the early 2000s. This allowed for a comparison of the two versions in
order to detect changes in the texts over a certain period of time.
Caribbean Indian Ocean
var. Caribbean
Guadeloupe
Martinique
var. Indian
Fr. Guiana
Seychelles
Mauritius
Réunion
Ocean
GUA MAR GUY KAR SEY MAU REU IO sum
French 5 4 2 4 5 3 1 24
German 1 2 7 7 7 4 28
English 1 4 2 4 10
sum 15 48 63
Table 1. Composition of the corpus. (Number of travel guidebooks by territory
and region; “var. Caribbean” and “var. Indian Ocean”: Books which cover
several countries/territories in one volume. The abbreviations are used in the
codes referencing the sources of quotations from the data; see below for details
about the codes).
4
See the statistics for Guadeloupe and Martinique in Raimbaud, Cratère and Trefoloni
(2018), for Mauritius in Statistics Mauritius (2019), for the Seychelles in National
Bureau of Statistics (n.d.). Many international tourists in e.g. Guadeloupe or Martinique
visit the islands as part of a cruise. For this target group, travel guidebooks describing a
larger number of islands in the Caribbean are available, with rather brief descriptions for
each territory. Due to the widely varying multilingual settings of the region, this type of
book usually does not contain extensive descriptions of Creole languages. Therefore, we
did not include them in the analysis.Philipp Krämer & Magdalena von Sicard 68
Figure 1. Number of books in the corpus by publication year
The text volume of the language descriptions varies widely from one book to
another. In some cases, the subject remains limited to two or three sentences; other
authors dedicate several pages to the matter. It is difficult to exactly quantify the length
of these chapters across all guidebooks since the relevant sections are not always clearly
delimited. Metalinguistic depictions frequently fade into accounts about related subjects
such as literature or music.
The sample only included those passages which define Creole languages, give
historical descriptions, metalinguistic remarks or information about the current
sociolinguistic situation. According to Fandrych and Thurmair’s (2011: 62–63)
classification of sub-texts in travel guidebooks, these chapters can be classified as
“background texts” which provide basic knowledge of the place to be visited, as
opposed to, e.g., texts which give advice for specific situations that travellers may
encounter. A considerable number of books additionally comprised a section with
useful phrases or basic vocabulary, sometimes in connection with, but frequently
separate from the metalinguistic description.5 These passages could rather be classified
as advice sub-texts and therefore do not fall within the scope of this paper. They
certainly could be subject to another analysis, e.g. with regard to the selection of words
and phrases, the combination and succession of languages chosen etc. (see Cordeiro
2011: 384–385 for the functions and properties of such chapters in travel guidebooks
and phrasebooks for tourists).
5
The French Petit Futé series often includes a multiple page section with vocabulary,
grammar and pronunciation guidelines adopted from the Assimil language guides. These
parts are not always immediately adjacent to the metalinguistic description, they are
visibly demarcated with a different layout and thus remain separate from the authorship
of the main text.“A picturesque language, humorous and very pliable”: 69
descriptions of French-based Creole languages in travel guidebooks
In our analysis, we follow a discourse analytic, qualitative approach. Our project
connects to a larger body of research using critical text analysis, often with a
postcolonial orientation, to carve out power relations and imbalances represented in
guidebooks intended as “mediators of understanding” for a ‘Western’ public (Peel &
Sørensen 2016: 50–52; see Bhattacharyya 1997; Buzinde 2010; Callahan 2011 for
concrete examples). In order to facilitate data processing, we extracted the book
chapters which describe the local Creole languages and digitized them. With the help of
the software F4 Analysis, we annotated the data with hierarchized thematic labels which
we subsequently categorized, reviewed and interpreted along the lines of key concepts
and recurring motifs in the texts. Our account is structured along the basic discursive
elements identified in the texts, starting with a first section about categorizations and
labels attributed to Creole languages. The next section will retrace the ways travel
guidebooks present the processes and circumstances of creolization. In this part, the
notion of mixedness will play a significant role. In the third section, we will examine
the aesthetic categories applied to Creole languages and their connections with
essentialized characteristics of Creole speakers.
In order to make the quotations from our data transparent and to avoid an excessive
list of references at the end of the publication, the references for each extract are
encoded as follows: the first letter of the code indicates the publication language (D for
German, E for English, F for French). The second part of the code stands for the
territory described in the guidebook, with the abbreviations given in table 1 above.
Following the territory is the year of publication and the publisher of the guidebook. For
instance, the code F_MAR_2016_PetitFuté refers to the 2016 edition of the French Petit
Futé series about Martinique.
3. Categories and labels
When introducing Creoles to travellers who are assumed to be unfamiliar with these
languages, authors frequently address the languages’ status. Unlike established
dominant standard languages, Creoles provoke a need for categorical specification—a
need which is also mirrored in parts of the linguistics community (e.g. the book title
Defining Creole, McWhorter 2005). In an attempt to define them in a way accessible to
non-specialists, most guidebooks6 characterize Creoles as independent languages, others
maintain the categorization as dialects of French. In addition, a multitude of terms are
used to provide a classification, including e.g. “mixed language”, “idiom”, “parler”,
“patois” or “lingua franca”.
In some cases, classifications intersect or even contradict each other when authors
stress the character of Creoles as languages in their own right while nevertheless
referring to them as dialects elsewhere in the same text or adopting notions with
negative connotations such as patois (Boyer 2013). This last term, even though it is
6
As is typical in qualitative research, we take into account the fact that discursive
patterns and prototypes of statements have fuzzy boundaries so that we may be able to
only give an impression of the extent to which a particular discursive element is
represented in the corpus.Philipp Krämer & Magdalena von Sicard 70
rather specific for the French-speaking context, can be found in books written in all
three publication languages. While the French texts mostly use the term for
demarcation, stating that Creoles are not to be considered patois,7 several English and
German books do indeed adopt it in an affirmative way.
In this context, the descriptions reflect—sometimes unintentionally—ongoing
debates and conflicting language attitudes in Creole-speaking societies: the
ideologically charged question of whether or not Creoles are to be considered
independent, full-fledged languages is intimately connected to matters of social and
official recognition in the relationship between Creole and French. Typically, the
categorizing terms are rarely defined or explained in more detail. Readers who are not
familiar with concepts like pidgin or patois will either have to look for other sources of
information or deduce the terms’ meanings from context. The terminological vagueness
occasionally leads to a circular reasoning when such notions are used as quasi-
synonymical definitions for Creole languages:
(1) “English is the official language but Kwéyòl, a French-based patois, is
spoken widely on both St Lucia and Dominica. It is very similar to the
Creole of Martinique and Haiti.” (E_KAR_2017_Footprint: 139)
The label Pidgin is used in a similar way, for example when Réunion Creole is said
to be “a form of pigeon-French [sic]” (E_IO_2000_Michelin: 62). Here, the author
seems to suggest that Creole is a sub-category of Pidgin whereas others use the term to
illustrate the scenario of a Pidgin-to-Creole development. This way, the history and
processes of creolization are presented as constitutive for the languages, their
categorization and their properties.
4. Processes of creolization
Slavery and colonial history as the most important conditions under which creolization
took place are present in almost all guidebooks. Many of them focus on the particular
circumstances of communication and language acquisition in the early colonial
societies. The accounts given by the authors differ in the way they attribute the
creolization process to the respective speaker groups that were involved. Some of them
state that slaves speaking the same substrate languages were separated on the
plantations in order to prevent mutiny.8 In these cases, creolization is presented as an
effect of impeded interaction between slaves. Other authors highlight the
communication between slaves and colonists, for example when they refer to variants of
7
It is a common strategy of guidebooks to negate and correct what authors anticipated
to be the readers’ misconceptions of the destination’s characteristics (Fandrych &
Thurmair 2010: 178—179).
8
For a discussion about the historical accuracy of such accounts, see e.g. Chaudenson
(1992: 70–79), Fleischmann (2003: xxvi–xxvii), Arends (2008: 313), Stein (2017: 154).“A picturesque language, humorous and very pliable”: 71
descriptions of French-based Creole languages in travel guidebooks
the “foreigner talk” hypothesis to explain how Creoles emerged.9 This way, colonists
are presented as primarily responsible for creolization and the formation of Creole
languages is seen as a more or less deliberate creation:
(2) ‘When the early French settlers tried to communicate with slaves who often
only knew the language of their people, they used a drastically simplified
French which they interspersed with words that they picked up from
conversations between the slaves.’
“Wenn die frühen französischen Siedler mit Sklaven zu kommunizieren
versuchten, die oft nur die Sprache ihrer Volksgruppe beherrschten,
benutzten sie ein stark vereinfachtes Französisch, in das sie Wörter
einstreuten, die sie aus den Unterhaltungen der Sklaven aufschnappten.”
(D_IO_2017_Polyglott_C: 258)
(3) ‘Creole is a language which was born out of the need for communication
between white masters and black slaves [...]. It is therefore a common
creation of Whites and Blacks.’
“Le créole est une langue qui est née du besoin de communication entre
maîtres blancs et esclaves noirs [...] C’est donc une création commune des
Blancs et des Noirs.” (F_MAR_2014_Geo: 41)
In this first example, colonists are even pictured as responsible for substrate
influence. In other cases, agency is attributed to the slaves or, as the second quotation
shows, to both groups alike. Almost all guidebooks give attention to the importance of
language acquisition and interaction during the formative period of Creole languages.
However, most of them select only very small portions of the complex settings which
are still being discussed in creolistics and present them as an exhaustive explanation for
creolization (see Stein 2017: 158–160 for a short account of different approaches to
agency in creolization).
Another scenario of Creole formation which many guidebooks evoke is the notion of
relexification, though it is rarely referred to with the term itself:
(4) ‘The grammatical structure of Antillean Creole is African, words stem from
the European vocabulary, even if we can recognize some African words
despite the phonetic deformations.’
“La structure grammatical du créole antillais est africaine, les mots de
vocabulaires européens, même si l’on peut reconnaître des mots africains
malgré les déformations phonétiques.” (F_MAR_2016_PetitFuté: 107)
9
See e.g. F_MAR_2005_GEO: 39; F_MAR_2016_PetitFuté: 107;
D_REU_2018_Dumont: 76.Philipp Krämer & Magdalena von Sicard 72
(5) ‘One assumes that within one or two generations, the Creole was born this
way, based on African languages, with a vocabulary borrowed for a large
part from the masters’ and overseers’ language.’
“On pense, qu’en une ou deux générations, le créole est né ainsi, sur la base
de langues africaines, avec un vocabulaire emprunté en grande partie à la
langue des maîtres et des contremaîtres.” (F_GUA_2002_Routard: 66)
The popularity of this idea probably lies in its potential to be easily simplified for a
lay public while it remains contested in linguistics and is presented in a much more
elaborate and nuanced way in the literature (Lefebvre 1986, 2011; Valdman 2015: 399–
401, 425–426). The same is true for the idea of a Pidgin-to-Creole development. This
shows that we can indeed identify some traces of insights adopted from linguistic
research and introduced in the descriptions even though the criteria for the selection of a
particular term or approach remain opaque. The bioprogramme hypothesis, for instance,
which was put forward by Bickerton (1981) and remained influential in creolistics for a
long while, is never alluded to either explicitly or implicitly. As far as the work of
linguists is mentioned specifically, guidebooks mostly cite contributions to
documentation, standardization and language planning, e.g. the compilation of
dictionaries or the development of spelling norms:
(6) ‘Linguist Annegret Bollée from Bamberg University intensively dealt with
this problem [a unified spelling] and she edited a Seychellois-French
dictionary in collaboration with the Seychellois Guy Lionnet and Danielle
d’Offay. Since then, children learn to write their native language according
to these rules in elementary schools and the government offers classes in
which adults can learn the new rules.’
“Die Linguistin Annegret Bollé [sic] von der Universität Bamberg hat sich
mit diesem Problem intensiv auseinandergesetzt und in Zusammenarbeit
mit den Seychellois Guy Lionnet und Danielle d’Offay ein Wörterbuch
Seychellisch - Französisch herausgegeben. In den Grundschulen lernen die
Kinder seither ihre Muttersprache diesen Regeln entsprechend zu schreiben,
und die Regierung bietet Kurse an, in denen Erwachsene die neuen Regeln
lernen können.” (D_SEY_2018_Dumont: 85)
Since this guidebook was published in Germany, the section was most probably
included due to the fact that a German linguist was involved in the language policy and
education efforts. While the commitment of educational and scientific institutions in the
various countries and territories is acknowledged to some extent in a number of
guidebooks, one of them altogether denies the existence of research about Mauritian
Creole even though an abundance of works is available:“A picturesque language, humorous and very pliable”: 73
descriptions of French-based Creole languages in travel guidebooks
(7) ‘However, linguists have come to the conclusion that it is indeed a full-
fledged language whose grammar has not been subject to research or fixed
in schoolbooks.’
“Sprachwissenschaftler sind jedoch inzwischen zu der Erkenntnis
gekommen, dass es sich um eine vollwertige Sprache handelt, deren
Grammatik nicht erforscht und in Schulbüchern festgehalten ist.”
(D_Mau_2017_Dumont, S.: 70)
This particularly drastic example ignores the long-standing research efforts in
creolistics, probably in an attempt to make the language seem enigmatic and arcane (see
Cordeiro 2011: 382 for similar attempts in guidebooks to make Portuguese seem
mysterious). The text also fails to take note of the important changes in the Mauritian
educational system as Creole had been introduced in the curriculum five years before
the publication of the book.10 This raises the question of editorial processes and updates
to the guidebooks which will be discussed below.
5. Mixedness
As far as processes of creolization are concerned, the guidebooks touch on widely
differing narratives. Yet, an idea upon which almost all of them agree is the supposed
mixed character of Creoles. To begin with, this notion is mirrored in the term “mixed
language” which is frequently used as one of the defining labels for Creole languages.
Mixedness is observed first and foremost in the lexicon. This is unsurprising because
languages are often seen, outside of linguistics, as a conglomerate of words:
(8) ‘Creole is spoken almost anywhere, a very peculiar island language,
consisting of French elements and word constructs of the various
immigrant groups.’
“Gesprochen wird jedoch fast überall kreolisch, eine sehr eigenartige
Inselsprache, bestehend aus französischen Elementen und Wortgebilden der
unterschiedlichen Einwanderungsgruppen.” (D_REU_2018_Rother)
10
In 2012, Creole was first introduced as an optional subject for primary school
students in Mauritius (Ministry of Education and Human Resources 2014: 24).Philipp Krämer & Magdalena von Sicard 74
(9) ‘It [Seychelles Creole] is composed for 90% of old French, but also
interspersed with African, Indian, Malagasy or English words.’11
“Il est composé à 90% de vieux français, mais aussi émaillé de mots
africains, indiens, malgaches ou anglais.” (F_SEY_2007_Mondeos, S.:
111)
These excerpts show how language is conceptualized as made up of a constitutive
material called “elements” or, often more specifically, words. As a result, the lexicon
receives particular attention in the guidebooks, especially its composition based on the
substrate and superstrate languages which were involved. There is a clear tendency
towards enumerating as many contributing languages as possible.
(10) ‘Creole is a language that developed from the French of the colonial
masters and at the same time it is mixed with the words of the Bantu
languages, Kiswahili, Malagasy, Hindi, Urdu and English.’
“Kreol ist eine Sprache, die sich aus dem Französischen der
Kolonialherren entwickelt hat und gleichzeitig mit den Wörtern der
Bantusprachen, Kisuaheli, Madagassisch, Hindi, Urdu und dem
Englischen vermischt ist.” (D_SEY_2018_ReiseKnowHow: 119–120)
(11) ‘The language was enriched by elements of Malagasy, Portuguese and
Tamil; occasionally Hindu [sic] forms can also be found.’
“Die Sprache wurde angereichert durch Elemente des Madagassischen,
des Portugiesischen und des Tamilischen; vereinzelt sind auch Hindu-
Formen zu finden.” (D_REU_2015_Iwanowski: 42)
Even though the substrate languages contributed only a smaller amount of the
lexemes—a fact which most authors do acknowledge—the enumeration makes their
share seem considerably larger than warranted according to established research. Some
travel guidebooks stress the role of variation in the French superstrate. They might, for
11
It is indeed well-established that the lexicon of French-based Creoles contains
numerous elements which in contemporary French are perceived as archaic. However,
the percentage given is not supported by empirical evidence. Depending on the
language at hand and the exact criteria, estimates for the share of archaisms in French-
based Creoles are usually under one third, more often in the low two-digit percentages
or even less (Stein 2017: 86–87). For Seychelles Creole, Bollée (1981: 4, in Stein 2017:
87) indicates that 9.1% of the lexicon can be considered to be archaisms or remnants of
dialects.“A picturesque language, humorous and very pliable”: 75
descriptions of French-based Creole languages in travel guidebooks
example, specify regional dialects or semantic change from historical stages of French
to present language use.
In contrast, substrate languages are often lumped together as “African languages” or
“dialects” without distinction or nuance, as the following examples show.
(12) ‘It is true that Creole partly originates from the dialects of Normandy,
Poitou, or also Picardy.’
“Il est vrai que le créole puise une partie de ses origine dans les patois
normands, poitevins ou encore picards” (F_GUA_2017_Routard: 329)
(13) ‘In order to be able to communicate with each other, they invented Creole
which borrows largely from the colonizer’s language and from African
dialects.’
“Pour pouvoir communiquer entre eux, ils inventèrent le créole, qui
emprunte largement à la langue du colonisateur et aux dialectes africains.”
(F_GUA_2003_Hachette: 49)
We can observe here how a double standard is applied to the strata: while the
superstrate is considered a “language”, the substrates are classified as “dialects”. Such
statements are reminiscent of general tendencies, grounded in standard language
ideology, to dismiss unstandardized or unwritten languages as “less developed” and
deny them the status as legitimate languages altogether. Similar classifications often
occurred in colonial approaches to Creole languages and only gradually disappeared in
creolistics in the past decades (Krämer 2014: 46–47). In the following example the
author even refers to “the African language”, as if there was only one.
(14) ‘In Guadeloupe you can find both terms derived from English like e.g.
kònbif (corned beef) or djòb (job) and words taken from African such as
koukou-djèdjè (hide-and-seek game) and zanba (devil).’
“Auf Guadeloupe findet man sowohl aus dem Englischen abgeleitete
Begriffe, wie z.B. kònbif (corned beef) oder djòb (job), als auch aus dem
Afrikanischen übernommene Wörter, wie z.B. koukou-djèdjè
(Versteckspiel) und zanba (Teufel).” (D_KAR_2015_ Polyglott: 67)
The diachronic dimension is discussed—if at all—for the French superstrate only.
Language change in the substrate languages, the relevance of historical stages in their
development, is not mentioned at all. At the same time, we have to admit that even in
current Creole linguistics, the diachrony of the substrate languages themselves is not
very frequently discussed either and many languages of Africa or the historico-linguistic
backgrounds of slaves remain seriously understudied compared to the body of researchPhilipp Krämer & Magdalena von Sicard 76 available for the dominant European languages.12 The guidebook’s tendency to ignore the history of African languages altogether reflects a long-standing view of Africans as a people without history or culture (Nederveen Pieterse 1992: 34–35; see Epelde 2004: 174–175 for a similar bias in the historical description of India in the Lonely Planet). The notion that their languages would undergo change as well and show the same diachronic dynamics as European languages is eclipsed in the descriptions. Astonishingly, some guidebooks like the Dumont 2018 edition about the Seychelles attempt to be very specific with quantifications of the different influences in the lexicon13, listing which exact percentage of the creole vocabulary supposedly stems from which language and which percentage of French-derived words are not in use in today’s French. Again, these enumerations can be attributed to the conception of language as essentially being made up of words: in order to make clear what a “mixed language” looks like, the most exact and transparent way is to give a percentage of the elements which it is composed of. Perhaps this ostensible precision is also meant to show a serious, scientific and objective approach to language. As Fandrych and Thurmair (2010: 177) show, guidebooks frequently present “factual, quantifiable knowledge [...] embedded in narrative-historicizing or describing passages”. The proportions of the two writing strategies depend on the style of the respective guidebook. While some authors try to provide their readers with numbers and facts, others seem to prefer connecting with their readers on a more emotional level. Where this second strategy is used, we will find descriptions on a much more impressionistic level, e.g. drawing on aesthetic categories. 6. Aesthetics Numerous travel guidebooks claim that Creoles know a particularly high number of onomatopoetic or figurative expressions, considering this to be one of the most striking features of the lexicon. In total, across the corpus and the three publication languages, we found 28 instances where terms such as ‘imagery’ or ‘imagé(e/s)’, ‘bildhaft’ or 12 Cardoso (2008: 43–44) is right to advise against the term European languages as the geographical notion may have an alienating effect for speakers outside of Europe: French or English belong to the speech communities in the Caribbean, in the Indian Ocean and many other parts of the world in the same way they belong to the European speakers. Bearing this in mind, we maintain the term in this paper for two reasons: 1. As outlined above, the European standard varieties of these languages often still hold a strong prestige (this is true for French more than for English), and 2. the terminology in our context underlines the reality of tourism with speakers coming from outside and bringing certain linguistic practices with them. It is certainly true, however, that the use of this label entails a considerable level of simplification. 13 Examples can be found in the following guidebooks: D_SEY_2018_Dumont: 84; D_SEY_2007_Dumont: 69–70; F_SEY_2007_Mondeos: 111; E_IO_2000_Michelin: 386.
“A picturesque language, humorous and very pliable”: 77
descriptions of French-based Creole languages in travel guidebooks
‘picturesque’ are used as characterizations of the Creole languages or their lexicon.14
Whether or not it is indeed the case that the total frequency of metaphorical images is
higher in Creole languages than in other languages remains pure speculation at this
point.15
Many authors make a connection between the supposed simplicity of the grammar
and the alleged richness of metaphorical language use.
(15) ‘In terms of grammar, the Creole language may not be very complicated,
but the lexicon has a great wealth of pictorial paraphrases.’
“Das Kreolische mag zwar in der Grammatik nicht so kompliziert sein,
doch auf der lexikalischen Ebene weist es einen großen Reichtum an
bildhaften Umschreibungen auf.” (D_REU_2018_Dumont: 77)
The authors seem to suggest that the two dimensions balance each other out. These
statements are reminiscent of historical texts which present Creole speakers as childlike
and therefore more imaginative but less intellectual than speakers of European
languages. Alfred Corre (1890: 262), for example, portrays Black people as an
“infantile race” that allegedly has a particular taste for proverbs to give their thoughts a
figurative form (see von Sicard 2014 for an account of the colonial perspective on
Creole proverbs).
The aesthetic qualities of Creole languages are praised in a variety of ways, not only
in terms of imagery, but also in connection with other sensory experiences. Here, the
authors themselves make extensive use of a wide range of metaphors. Some allude to
taste in describing Creole languages, calling them “savoury” (seven occurrences in the
corpus) or “delicious” (three occurrences), others make use of more specific metaphors
with food as their source domain:
(16) ‘[Creole] is the icing on the cake of the trip’ [lit.: ‘the cherry on the cake’]
“[Le créole] est la cerise sur le gâteau du voyage”
(F_GUA_2002_Routard : 66)
14
These include the passage quoted in the title of this paper where Mauritian Creole is
described as “a picturesque language, humorous and very pliable”
(E_MAU_2009_Globetrotter: 26).
15
To the best of our knowledge, no studies are available which would prove this claim
about Creole languages. It is certainly true that there are differences across languages or
cultures with regard to the frequency of particular sets of metaphorical domains
(Deignan 2003). However, this does not allow for a generalization about the overall use
of metaphors.Philipp Krämer & Magdalena von Sicard 78
Other senses like smell and vision can also appear in travel guidebooks. The Petit
Futé characterizes Seychellois Creole as “full of smells and colours” [“foisonnant
d’odeurs et de couleurs” (F_SEY_2011.12_PetitFuté: 88)].
The sense the most often alluded to is hearing, especially by using expressions
referring to music or musicality. The corpus contains 24 instances of such descriptions,
all of them implying that Creole languages are equipped with an inherent musicality.
(17) ‘Diverse rhythms and intonations compose a picturesque and melodious
potpourri.’
“[R]ythmes et intonations diverses composent un pot-pourri pittoresque et
mélodieux.” (F_SEY_2000_PetitFuté: 140)
(18) ‘It is based on French, but it sounds more emotional, a bit like singing.’
“Es basiert auf dem Französischen, klingt aber emotionaler, ein wenig
wie gesungen.” (D_REU_2015_ReiseKnowHow: 127)
While some authors limit the scope of their narrative to the language alone, other
authors even establish a link between the supposed musicality of Creole languages and
the assumed general character or mentality of Creole speakers. They are portrayed as a
homogenous group, and the languages they speak as a window into their mind. The idea
that Africans and descendants of Africans allegedly have a unique innate musical talent
is a stereotype that came about in colonial times and seems to be perpetuated to this day.
As William G. Roy notes “music was one of the first specifically human capacities that
whites noted about slaves, leading to the persistent stereotype that blacks have a natural
affinity for music.” (Roy 2010: 21; see also, Levine 1977: 5–6; Haynes 2013: 36)
Common stereotypes hold “that black people are musically and rhythmically gifted, can
dance well, are cheerful, and are as it were closer to nature [...].” (Nederveen Pieterse
1992: 12) All of these aforementioned elements are represented, to differing degrees
and in varying selection, in a large number of the language descriptions in our corpus.
(19) ‘You don’t grasp the Creole language that easily. It is a question of
rhythm, feeling, repartee, in short, of naturalness, that only Creoles
have.’
“[V]ous n’attrapez pas la langue créole comme ça. C’est une question de
rythme, de feeling, de répartie, bref du naturel, que seuls les créoles
ont.” (F_REU_2018_PetitFuté : 94)
The idea that people of non-European descent are destined to live in harmony with
nature can be traced back to the image of the African wilderness inhabited by savage
African men, a notion picked up and widely circulated by 19th century colonial“A picturesque language, humorous and very pliable”: 79
descriptions of French-based Creole languages in travel guidebooks
explorers and missionaries (Nederveen Pieterse 1992: 117). Likewise, the “naturalness”
of Creole languages had already been propagated by creolists like Lucien Adam (1883)
und Julien Vinson (1883: 17–18; see also Krämer 2014: 95). Georges Haurigot wrote
about the inhabitants and the oral literature of French Guiana:
(20) ‘Superstitious, naive, and remaining close to nature, negroes, in all the
countries they inhabit, hold a veritable treasure trove of legends, tales
and typical sayings.’
“Superstitieux, naïfs, restés voisins de l’état de nature, les nègres, dans
tous les pays qu'ils habitent, détiennent un véritable trésor de légendes,
de contes, de dictons typiques.” (Haurigot 1893: 1)
Drawing on notions like musicality or naturalness, the travel guidebooks construct a
sort of essence of Creole languages and their speakers. This essence also comprises
generalized imagined character traits:
(21) ‘This ‘parler’ is a wonderful embodiment of the resolutely cheerful and
playful character of the local people.’
“Ce ‘parler’ traduit merveilleusement le caractère résolument gai et
enjoué du peuple de l’endroit” (F_SEY_2000_SeychellesAujourdHui :
68)
For a long time, stereotypical characterizations of Black people included ideas such
as an alleged tendency to inherent cheerfulness (Boskin 1986: 46–48, 54). Hallie (1969:
120) describes Sambo, one of the most omnipresent and long-standing clichés in US-
American culture, as “the eternal child, the eternal dependent, happy though given
unaccountable moods of depression, lazy, enjoying the banjo and the dance,
passionately religious, but passive in most other things—a rather spirited but lazy,
overgrown child.” The French had their Bamboula, who is “usually depicted as a
cheerful African but not the cleverest” (Nederveen Pieterse 1992: 161). In a similar
vein, the German Sarotti-Mohr is presented as sweet and childlike as well (Zeller 2008:
221). Elements of these stereotypes are still perpetuated today, amongst others in travel
guidebooks from around the world. As we can see, these images are not newly invented
but rather a revisitation of old exoticizing conceptions of both the languages and their
speakers.Philipp Krämer & Magdalena von Sicard 80
7. Perpetuation and editing processes
As the preceding paragraphs have shown, travel guidebooks can contribute to an
exoticizing discourse about Creole languages and their speakers. They frequently adopt
established (mis-)conceptions and present them as facts. Peel and Sørensen (2016: 8)
point to an important desideratum in research about travel guidebooks when they
observe that “[t]here is little extant analysis of the intrinsic structure of the guidebook,
particularly in relation to change and consistency in the information provided. It may be
expected that guidebooks are prone to sameness in structure, a trait exacerbated in the
context of a guidebook series to a single destination.” We cannot offer an in-depth
diachronic study of our corpus at this point, however, we are able to illustrate a general
tendency in our data: the editing processes of the guidebooks are indeed an important
factor in the perpetuation of stereotypical representations. While smaller bits of
information like opening hours of tourist attractions or prices of hotels and restaurants
are updated on a regular basis, the sections presenting general information about the
countries and societies remain largely unchanged over a significant period of time.
The corpus comprised a total of 14 pairs of guidebooks from the same publisher,
often written by the same author(s), in which one was the most recent edition available
and the other an older edition within the time span of the past 20 years. The interval
between the two editions ranged from 2 years in one case to a maximum of 16 years for
two pairs; the majority of the pairs were at least 10 years apart.
As an example, a comparison of the Routard editions for Guadeloupe from 2002 and
2017 can illustrate the intricacies of the reworking processes:
(22) ‘Also the born-and-bred békés16 ‘Also the born-and-bred békés
speak with a Creole accent, and it speak with a Creole accent, and
may seem peculiar to visitors of this may seem peculiar to less
the island to hear it come out of accustomed visitors of the island.
the mouth of a ravishing creature
with a light skin tone, blonde hair
and blue eyes. But while you may
think that the English speak with a
hot potato in their mouth, the
Creoles rather seem to have honey
on their tongue.
And all this is underscored by And all this is underscored by
gestures, raspy laughs and gestures, raspy laughs and
figurative expressions which are figurative expressions which
redolent of the old Overseas remind you of the old Overseas
France.’ France.’
16
In the French West Indies (and particularly in Martinique), the term béké refers to a
descendant of the first European colonizers in the islands.“A picturesque language, humorous and very pliable”: 81
descriptions of French-based Creole languages in travel guidebooks
“Les békés pure souche parlent “Les békés pure souche parlent
aussi avec l'accent créole, et cela aussi avec l’accent créole, et cela
peut paraître insolite aux visiteurs peut paraître insolite aux visiteurs
de l’île de l’entendre sortir de la de l’île peu habitués.
bouche d’une ravissante créature
au teint clair, aux cheveux blonds
et aux yeux bleus. Mais si l’on
peut penser que les Anglais
parlent avec une patate chaude
dans la bouche, les créoles, eux,
auraient plutôt du miel sur la
langue.
Et pour ponctuer tout cela, des Et pour ponctuer tout cela, des
gestes, des rires rocailleux, des gestes, des rires rocailleux, des
expressions imagées qui fleurent expressions imagées qui évoquent
bon la Vieille France d’outre- la Vieille France d’outre-mer.”
mer.” (F_GUA_2002_Routard: (F_GUA_2017_Routard: 329–
66) 330)
In the newer version, some markedly racializing and sexualizing passages were
omitted. The text from 2017 does not elaborate any more on the appearance of an
“atypical” speaker. Notwithstanding, the current edition still maintains references to a
connection between language and the ethnic composition of the society. The reader is
expected to be familiar with the term béké (explained elsewhere in the book) in order to
be able to decipher the implicature that one might be surprised when hearing a light-
skinned person speak Creole. The last part of the text section also retains the
aestheticizing depiction of the language, its portrayal as being particularly figurative and
the connection to the alleged jollity of the speakers, established by declaring laughs a
distinctive feature of the speech community. Despite noticeable abbreviations of the text
—due to a more critical attitude towards its contents or the mere need to restrict the
length of the chapter—most of the conceptual foundations of the language description
remain unchanged and unquestioned.
8. Discussion: three areas of tension
The interpretation of the language descriptions in travel guidebooks showed three areas
of tension within the texts. First, we find that most authors object to the idea of Creoles
as inferior and they do stress that they are fully-fledged languages. In an encouraging
way this can demonstrate to linguists that some of their work can indeed trickle down to
guidebook writers. Yet, many of them still very much rely on antiquated ideas,
sometimes even clichés which go back to colonial conceptions of language and race.
Many guidebooks make use of expressions with positive connotations, e.g. they present
Creoles as charming, picturesque, musical and natural. Such characterizations can easily
be perceived as condescending or patronizing. We can find similar concepts in manyPhilipp Krämer & Magdalena von Sicard 82 texts from colonial authors like Charles Baissac (1880), Louis Ducrocq (1902) or Georges Haurigot (1893) where the conceptual divide of natural vs civilized or playful vs serious implies an inherent power hierarchy. While such statements may be meant to show appreciation for the languages, they contribute to an effect of “paradoxical recognition” (Dreesen 2014; Krämer 2017: 133): the act of stressing the value of Creole languages on these levels, in a context where the metalinguistic conceptions of the colonial past still resonate, implicitly reconfirms the seemingly justified superior status of the dominant standard languages as the only means of communication suitable for settings in which a “picturesque” or “charming” way of speaking would be inappropriate. Although it might seem at first glance that in these descriptions the other (in this case: Creole speakers) are valued, this exoticizing, stereotyping fashion “serves to comfort the Self in its feeling of superiority” (Staszak 2009: 43). As Staszak (2009: 46) argues further, “the otherness of the exotic is not the brute and brutal otherness of the first encounter; it is the bland otherness, staged and transformed into merchandise, on the colonial world offered up as a spectacle, as in orientalist paintings, human zoos…[...].” Guidebooks are not aiming to frighten or shock their readers; much more likely, their purpose is to connect to the images we might already have in our minds, selling us the satisfaction of our fantasies (see Bhattacharyya 1997 for similar findings in a critical analysis of the Lonely Planet about India). They are meant to prepare the reader for an experience of difference while avoiding the risk of discomforting them by openly challenging their self-perception. With the descriptions of Creoles connecting to long-standing stereotypes about the languages and their speakers, the reader can see their expectations confirmed and find exactly the type of difference they were hoping for. At the same time, their view of their own language as a “normal” one, conforming with the linguistic ideology which is dominant in most travellers’ home societies, will not be put into question by the way Creole languages are presented in the guidebooks. The second area of friction, connected to the first one, lies in the fact that it is indeed a difficult task to describe (Creole) languages to non-linguists and to be nuanced at the same time. Especially in a publication which offers limited space for a detailed and exact account, simplification will be necessary to a certain degree. Users of travel guidebooks expect them to be relatively concise and to present relevant information in a manner which saves them the time or effort to research it themselves. One of the reasons why printed travel guides are still popular in comparison to online sources lies in the fact that the published product offers a readily available selection of information (Peel & Sørensen 2016: 192–193). For most subjects in travel guidebooks, it is a challenge for authors to give a brief yet complete account which avoids unnecessary specialized terminology and which is, ideally, both informative and entertaining to read. One instrument to achieve this goal is aestheticization as a means to connect to the reader’s intuition; once again at the cost of connecting to long-standing stereotypes. It is important to realize that generalizations can have very significant effects: with collectivizing or essentializing descriptions, Creoles are portrayed as entirely different from the tourist’s home languages. The speakers, then, are not recognized as individuals but as representatives of a homogeneous community which is set apart from the visitors. An essentialized image of the other would therefore imply that there is a stable and
“A picturesque language, humorous and very pliable”: 83
descriptions of French-based Creole languages in travel guidebooks
homogenous “we” in this dichotomous relationship.17 As we have seen above, many
guidebooks move past this dilemma by nuancing the European linguistic influence, e.g.
when they mention dialectal variation in French while oftentimes maintaining a fairly
superficial, if not generalizing image of the substrate languages.
As a third area of tension, we have to recognize that effects of othering and
exoticizing may be highly problematic, but also desirable to a certain extent: otherness
is an essential part of the tourist experience (van Gorp 2012: 6). The travel destination is
supposed to be different from the tourist’s home country and culture and the interest of
travel can lie in this very experience. We can assume that the way Creole languages are
presented is intended to amplify this experience. While communication is still ensured
through the dominant presence of French or English, Creoles are used as a decoration to
increase the country’s attractiveness. In a sense, they become a selling point for the
tourist destination. If such experiences occur under conditions of equality, they can be
beneficial for both the visitors and the visited. Increased awareness may help to enhance
the visibility of marginalized communities and reduce the stigmatization of languages
associated with colonial oppression. Yet, the discursive elements in the language
descriptions of guidebooks provide a potential for encounters in which tourists may not
consider Creole speakers as fully on a par with themselves, at least as far as their
linguistic repertoire or practices are concerned.
9. Conclusion: Creoles as commodities and responsibilities for creolistics
As Heller, Pujolar, and Duchêne (2014: 426) show, the “commodification of language”
is particularly visible in tourism where “the packaging of cultural forms or practices—
including languages—as products for tourist consumption” is a common practice. While
in the case of Creoles, the languages themselves are not necessarily the economic goods
which are valued, acquired or “consumed” on a market, they do serve as a means to
increase the value of the primary good on offer: they add to the tourist destination’s
authentic character (Heller, Pujolar & Duchêne 2014: 552).18 In globalized tourism, the
notion of authenticity is a key factor valued by tourists and service providers alike.
Along with other cultural phenomena such as music, dance, food or architecture,
Creoles are exhibited in the guidebooks as tokens of authentic distinction. The emphasis
on the dissimilarity between Creoles and languages better known to many tourists, such
17
Insisting on differences between “us” and “them” creates a delicate potential which
can ultimately be exploited for racism and exclusion (see the very detailed analysis by
Tzetan Todorov (1989) under the title Nous et les autres: ‘Us and the others’). In his
fairly early works on racism, Memmi (1968: 197) rightly states, though: “Ce n’est pas la
différence qui appelle toujours le racisme, c’est le racisme qui utilise la différence.” [It
is not difference which brings about racism, it is racism which makes use of difference.]
18
In this respect, French-based Creoles differ from Palenquero, a Spanish-based Creole
in Colombia which has grown into the role of a tourist attraction in itself as visitors—
who may or may not have a particular affinity to studying the language in more detail—
request to experience the linguistic heritage of the community, or are actively offered
this experience by speakers themselves (Schwegler 2011: 455; Lipski 2016: 51).You can also read
