Créoles », « Français », créolisation : identités et langues du père Labat à Thérèse Bentzon

• Published in: Etudes caribéennes Vol. 10; no. 10
• Main Author: Forestier, Anna
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Université des Antilles 30-09-2023
• Subjects: colonial societies; Creole; creolization; identity; racialization
• ISSN: 1779-0980; 1961-859X
• DOI: 10.4000/etudescaribeennes.28224

From the travel literature of the modern era describing the first French colonial societies to the quivering of West Indian literature in the 19th century, the use of the term ‘creole’ reveals the evolution of the discourse on identities and languages. The narratives of Father Labat at the beginning of the 18th century and that of Thérèse Bentzon at the end of the 19th century depict a construction of the identity of the ‘Creoles’, gradually distinguishing themselves from the ‘French’, but also introducing a distinction of colour. At the same time, they show the emergence of a discourse on the languages spoken by a large proportion of the men and women in these areas: ‘French’, ‘baragouin’ or ‘Creole’. The latter, in the sense of a language attested as early as the 18th century, is a late entry into these literatures. A historical approach to ‘Creoles’ and ‘Creole’ in these authors questions and articulates the ‘creolizations’ of language and identity within French West Indian societies.