LPT in Contact with Speaker about Kreol in Parliament
08.04.2025
LALIT has pleasure publishing the letter the Association Ledikasyon pu Travayer sent to the Speaker on the topic so important to LALIT, and that LPT copied to the Press. The Speaker has replied and an LPT delegation will be meeting her soon to discuss the issue and the “hurdles” it faces.
Dear Madam Speaker Shirin Aumeeruddy-Cziffra,
We, in the Association “Ledikasyon pu Travayer”, whose aims include promoting the mother tongue, are delighted that you, as Speaker of the National Assembly, have set up consultative meetings prior to the introduction of “Kreol Repiblik Moris” as one of the languages to be used in the National Assembly. We read in the Cabinet Report of last Friday that “Cabinet has taken note that the Speaker of the National Assembly had set up, as a matter of utmost priority, consultative meetings with a view to looking into the practical hurdles that needed to be cleared before introducing the use of Kreol Morisien in the National Assembly”.
We write to you as we would be most interested to be included in a “consultation” meeting with you.
Your initiative is important for decolonization and, quite simply, for democracy. At an even more basic level, it is important for allowing for the highest degree of precision of the human mind-at-work. Human language is, after all, more than a “means of communication”. It is our shared way of representing naturally in our heads, through grammatical structures we are born with, all the data that comes to us through our different senses. Human language allows us to process our own emotions inside us, too, through this “grammatical template” that human language is, and even to think about our own thoughts and other people’s thoughts. And all this we do naturally. Because we are human and have a mother tongue. And MPs, in the National Assembly, need to rely upon this natural endowment, as humans, in order to be part of the nation that elected them. We judge Kreol to be the language MPs consider to be natural because they used it in the electoral campaign, as you have also mentioned. Candidates and their parties seek election via speeches in Kreol, and thus prove that that is the language people use and the language understood with most precision. Now that the National Assembly is televised, we can see and hear our MPs directly, ourselves. The only problem is that we hear them in a language NOT used when seeking our vote in the democratic system.
And we are delighted too, that Hon. Joanna Bérenger challenged you, in your role as Speaker, by addressing the National Assembly in the mother tongue of over 90% of the people.
And it is fitting that two women uphold the “mother” tongue, which is still today disdained by many in our society, and particularly disdained, curiously, when spoken by girls and women.
We would like to put on record, too, that Hon. J. Bérenger, not only an MP but also a Junior Minister, thus making her action even braver, was following in the footsteps of a previous brave elected person, who was a man. He was the Municipal Councillor, Mr. Mamode Ellam, who did the same brave thing over 100 years ago. It was in 1922. So, it was 103 years ago. He was in the Port Louis Municipal Council. He continued beginning each speech in Kreol for a period of five whole months of meetings, so dedicated was he, before being ruled out-of-order each time. And, for the record, Hon Stefan Toussaint in his maiden speech in 2014, began with a paragraph in spoken Kreol. Hon. Alan Ganoo did the same thing in 2017, after there was a public demand for MPs to do so, as part of pressure to introduce the mother tongue.
It was at our Committee Meeting held yesterday, that we decided to write to you to say we would like to be included in your consultations.
We have some 50 years’ experience working on the Kreol language – in hundreds of ways – and working on its promotion.
Past Work Towards Getting Where We Are
So, here is a sample of things, quickly put together, that might interest you. We can supply you with a list of some of the Parliamentary Questions and answers on the issue of Kreol in Parliament, over the years. And we can provide you with Open Letters by us and others to previous Speakers on the issue. There are also “Charters” and “Petitions” over the years, with careful argumentation in each on the use of Kreol in Parliament. There was a demonstration in front of Parliament in 2009, too.
You may like to know, too, that, for example, the Institute for Judicial and Legal Studies (IJLS) held a course, which our Association together with the Open University, gave for Supreme Court Transcribers over the course of a few months. They loved the course, their results were brilliant, and they received certification from the Open University.
With this background, you will know, and can share, how we are not today working in a historic “vacuum”. The reactionaries will try to prevent this change – so we need to be informed.
Past Surveys and Government Censuses
There were professional SOFRES surveys of people’s attitude to Kreol being introduced into Parliament, one in 1977 and another in 2009. Both show 2/3 people in favour. This despite ignorance as to the existing infrastructure that the Kreol language has. The second survey included questions on things like “Is there a dictionary”, etc to judge the degree of ignorance.
The 10-yearly government Census has a steady high level of people replying that they “usually speak Kreol” at home.
What Amendments to the Constitution?
The precise amendments to the Constitution that will be possible and necessary are debated at length in documents we can refer you to.
Technical issues of “Mass Data”
And then there is the technical issue of “mass data”. Of course, all Artificial Intelligence operations like this one, need data, and they need “mass data”. This will, of course, essentially be produced every time the National Assembly meets and someone speaks in Kreol. This is how the computers “learn” – during the process, and become increasingly efficient.
However, there is existing “mass data” already in written Kreol. So, the first thing to know is that the LALIT website (www.lalitmauritius.org) has exactly the kind of “mass data” in written Kreol that can help with the process of computerized transcribing, audio-to-text. This website is used by the Paris VIII University, which we believe has a contract with LALIT for the use of the site for its linguistic studies of Creole languages world-wide, as it is the biggest data base of any Creole language. The site is also used by the University of Mauritius computer science academics like Dr Sameerchand Pudaruth working on automatic translation and automatic audio-to-written transcribing. We are sure LALIT would be pleased to offer use of the linguistic data on the site.
Currents of Thought on What a Dictionary is
Concerning spelling, LPT has launched a “spell-check” that can be used with Open Source programs and programs like Word. It is called “Spel-chek Inifye” and is already quite widely used. Its particularity is that it allows spelling in the two main traditions – the LPT tradition which is much richer, and the so-called “official spelling”. We suggest that you adopt our attitude towards spelling and dictionaries. We prefer the Anglophone tradition of seeing a dictionary as a list of words as they are “commonly used” and including different ways of spelling as well as different meanings. In other words, the spelling and the meaning are invented by those who write words down i.e. the people. We find the French tradition where the State imposes how to spell and what a word means to be repressive in the extreme. We hope that the National Assembly will not follow this latter tradition of being a “police” of language. In the UK, each publisher has its “publishing house spelling”, and one of the last things done before going to print is agreeing with the author of the book concerned which of the “house spelling” the author spells differently and they agree or not to accepting.
Material that may be Helpful
We can inform you that Kreol Translations exist (in two versions, which may be useful) of the Constitution of Mauritius(two versions, as far as we are aware), one recently published by Arnaud Carpooran’s team and the other worked on by the experience barrister, Rama Valayden.
Standing Orders in Kreol also exist in two versions – a recent one by Arnaud Carpooran, and one by Ledikasyon pu Travayer in 2018.
Three or four Labour laws have been translated into Kreol – over the decades. Sugar Industry Field Workers’ Remuneration Order and the Sugar Mill Workers Remuneration Order were both published in 1980. The Free Zone Labour Law was published by Labaz Intersindikal in 1987. The Construction Workers Labour Law published around 1998.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was published in Kreol in 1998 (“versyon sinplifye”, as they put it) by Amnesty International many years ago, but unfortunately without the Preamble, which is so important to the Universal Declaration. This version was the basis for the Monument on the Caudan Waterfront which included the Kreol version. More recently, a new version by Arnaud Carpooran’s team has come out. The Convention on the Rights of the Child in Kreol was published by the Federation of Preschool Playgroups. This, too, many years ago. These are all useful resources. We can dig out copies or virtual copies of most of these documents, should they be useful.
Jean-Claude Bibi has a wonderful article in Kreol published by LALIT “The Citizen and the Law”.
So we look forward to hearing from you, and we hope to be invited for a meeting at which we would be happy to contribute anything we know from our experience.
Yours sincerely,
Alain Ah Vee for LPT (5 9329002)
Copies to:
Prof Arnaud Carpooran
Me Jean-Claude Bibi
Me Rama Valayden
Dr. Sameerchand Pudaruth
