Why are so many people claiming to be CREOLE? Whats the story behind it & who is really (considered) creole?

Question

Im curious. Thanks for answering.

Answer 1

Did you check Wikipedia?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creole

Are there a lot of people claiming to be Creole? I hadn't noticed.

Answer 2

Creole's are New Orleans inhabitants that are composed of both African American and French ancestry or Haitian American and French ancestry. In the 19th century, many Creole's claimed there European ancestry and denounced their Black ancestry. Some Creole's owned slaves if you can believe that. After Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 (I think), Creole's were then force to consider themselves Black...interesting huh?

Answer 3

i dont know why so many people want to be creole. i am from Louisiana and have always been told that a creole is just some one who comes from a mixed background. i come from Irish, black, dutch, and Indian.

Answer 4

a person of Spanish (or French or Portuguese) ancestry but born in one of the Spanish (or French) colonies, as opposed to a Spaniard (or Frenchman or Portuguese) born in Spain (or France or Portugal)The term Louisiana Creole usually refers to the Louisiana Creole people in the US, andconcepts associated with them.
Creole and Patois

In the islands under French influence like Guadeloupe, Martinique, St. Lucia, Dominica, St. Martin, St. Barts, Marie-Galante, Les Saintes, Désirade... or Mauritius, Seychelles, Reunion Island... nearly all the population speaks a creole as first language...

All these people can understand each other! In countries under English influence, Creole has less standing, although there is a creolized form of English.

A person cannot be called a 'patois' but you can be a creole, no matter your racial origin. Patois is a French word meaning a regional or very local language. A French synonym of un patois is un parler. All French regions like Picardie, Jura, Savoie, Provence, or Aveyron just to cite a few, have their patois or parler, sometimes disappearing, sometimes being revived.

The people of Québec in Canada have kept the language and accents of the time they left France, as have the Louisiana cajun descendents. Their old French is a preciously preserved ancestral tongue like Sanskrit in Bali, remote Tamil Nadu village speech in the French West Indies, or Bhojpuri in Guyana. It is not just "bad language".

Creole and its many varieties also evolved as a patois on the overseas plantations of Europe. It is the common language emanating from the culture of people who have evolved in a Creole environment when French masters living far from France adopted their life style during the time they had African slaves and later indentured Indians and Chinese laborers.

Many Creole phrases can be retrieved by creolist linguists from old parlers of various French regions. This is one of the reasons why when a Guadeloupean meets a Reunionese or Mauritian person they soon manage to understand each other totally, all the while being charmed by the inflexions of each other and enjoying it profusely... Incredible indeed, when you realize they live a whole piece of the planet apart!

International Creole conferences take place anywhere between Seychelles, Reunion, or Martinique and Guadelooupe. St Lucia or Dominica could take part in such conferences. The Creole heritage of these two formerly French islands is incommensurable. Haiti, one of the biggest Creole speaking countries of the planet has always kept Creole as an institution.

It is not wrong to call the people's language of the Anglophone islands their patois. The creole patois made it possible for many Dominicans to make a living in Guadeloupe and so many St. Lucians in Martinique. The word creole has carried many meanings in the course of time and still keeps some of them, like a white person born in the islands, or their descendents...

Creole is not just African culture or lifestyle of Black people, although part of its grammatical originality, for instance, is definitely African.

Besides many varieties of French, its creativity also stems from words, grammar forms or inflexions taken or adapted from Spanish, Portuguese, Hindi, Tamil, English and other languages.

Creole literature - essays, poetry or novels alike - both in French and Creole, penned by people of all colors and bloods, is vast.

Many foreign residents learn Creole while staying in the islands, because it takes them 'from broomstick strictness and stiffness' to share a swinging, enjoyable, easy-going lifestyle. However, a large number of West Indians who left the islands to live in other countries gave up the language and will not transmit it to their offspring. One reason for this may be because for long time the Creole patois was considered a handicap to proper education à la Française - an obstacle to learning good French, and bad manners of uneducated “country” people, moun la kanpangn.

Creole is making a come back in force. Its grammatical structures and vocabulary has been standardized, although its creativity continues to challenge any permanent codification and is being taught in schools as a means of preserving its rich heritage. On cannot separate a culture from the language its thrives in!

In Guadeloupe and Martinique, Creole can be heard freely during any program on radio and television channels, official or not, along with perfect French, and not as a separate entity. In St. Lucia and Dominica, entire programs, speeches, and books have been produced in this language. Indeed it's the best reflection of real life in these islands.

When Indian indentured laborers, the Jahaji’s as they are called in some places like Trinidad - or coolies as they were called not without disdain in the French West Indies - arrived to Guadeloupe from so many parts of India and they spoke a variety of languages and village vernaculars, they quickly resorted to grabbing Creole, the language spoken by the masters and former slaves to communicate.