Discover Martinique : Creole in schools and in publishing

Organization of Creole language and culture teaching

Testimony of Sylvère Farraudière, IA-DSDEN (Inspecteur d'académie, directeur des services départementaux de l'Éducation nationale).

Naturally, spontaneous oral expression took place in Creole, but at school it was controlled, not free. The repression of Creole stifled imagination, and ultimately harmed expression altogether, out of sheer fear of Creolisms.

The organization of Creole language and culture teaching in Martinique's education system is one of those successes of which the institution can be reasonably proud. But the cause was not won in advance. In his reports on the operation of public primary education, Martinique's first vice-rector Henri-Simon Guerrier (1882-1887) denounced the widespread and exclusive use of Creole by rural populations as a hindrance to their children's learning at school.

The use of Creole was therefore banned in schools. A decree issued by the Governor on February 22, 1905 was clear and precise: "Only French will be used in school" . But the phenomenon was so pervasive that the Governor of Martinique, Decharte, declared to the General Council in 1938: "The existence of Creole spoken by the vast majority of the population means that the school's first task is to substitute the language.

Mastery of the French language by the majority of the population was seen by the elite as a major asset for assimilation into France, which cemented the dominant political project in Martinique and the other former colonies of Guadeloupe, French Guiana and Reunion, even after the 1946 departmentalization law transformed them into French overseas departments. In Martinique, the Creole language was rejected along with the negro condition of the countryside and the mornes.

But the situation changed with the powerful rural exodus movement that, between the 1960s and 1980s, pushed people from the mornes and the habitations to settle en masse in the outlying and interstitial areas of Fort-de-France and the towns. The Creole language, drum dances and songs, including the bèlè, the practice of wakes, laments and fantastic tales, the pharmacopoeia of the countryside, among other cultural contributions of the newcomers, were captured by theintelligentsia and the avant-garde fringe of the population of Fort-de-France. Aimé Césaire, mayor of Fort-de-France, and those around him seized the opportunity to unite the people of Martinique through culture. The creation of SERMAC (Service municipal d'action culturelle de Fort-de-France) is a prime example.

Teams of linguists from the young Université des Antilles et de la Guyane took up the theme. Such was the case of GEREC-F (Groupe d'Études et de Recherches en Espace Créole et Francophone), founded in 1975 by Professor Jean Bernabé. He succeeded in bringing together "researchers working on Creole language, culture and populations, with a specific focus on lexically French-based Creoles and the French-speaking area". They weren't starting from scratch, however, as the work of clerics who spontaneously fixed the primary languages had already been done, as did the Reverend Father Breton "who left us a French-Caribbean dictionary (which is more of a conversation manual) and a Caribbean catechism, both of which are invaluable for the study of this language and even of Creole", as Élodie Jourdain, herself the author of the two works Le Vocabulaire du parler créole de la Martinique and Du français aux parlers créoles, published in Paris in 1956, recalls.

The GEREC-F

Beyond its work in descriptive linguistics, the GEREC-F gave itself the "vocation to take part in the life of the Antillean and Guyanese city, by promoting the use and the teaching of the Creole". It joined, thus, cultural activists, who agitated with the idea to impose the language and the Creole culture to the whole Martiniquean society, to begin with its school. This still provokes more or less lively opposition today.

CARAPCE

The introduction of Creole into schools in Guadeloupe, Guyana and Martinique was the emblematic action of Bertène Juminer, Rector of the Académie des Antilles et de la Guyane and Chancellor of the University, from 1982 to 1985. He adopted the experimental method, designating the Priority Education Zones (ZEP) in these three departments as the testing ground. He set up an ad hoc commission, CARAPCE(Commission académique de réflexion pour l'aménagement de la pédagogie au cycle élémentaire), to define the experimental protocol, drawing on the results of university research. To give maximum impact to this revolution, he made the announcement on May 23, 1983, before the Creole Linguistics Congress in Lafayette, Louisiana (USA), in a message read by his academic representative for cultural action, Xavier Orville. From then on, it was up to the three Inspecteurs d'académie, directeurs des services départementaux de l'Éducation nationale (IA-DSDEN), of Guadeloupe, French Guiana and Martinique respectively, to lead these experiments in the field.

Cultural mediators

In French Guiana, where more than twenty different mother tongues coexist, the linguistic issue goes beyond the case of Creole alone. In this department, Sylvère Farraudière, IA-DSDEN from 1983 to 1988, and her teaching team invented the role of cultural mediator. The aim was twofold: to support children learning at school in the cultural gap that exists between their Creole-speaking or other family environment and the French-speaking school environment, through conscious and controlled pedagogical actions, inside or outside the school. The aim was also to help this pupil simultaneously elucidate the linguistic codes of both languages, Creole and French. Assigned to Martinique from 1988 to 1994, the same IA-DSDEN continued his work in this department, where existing resources made it possible to create a post of cultural mediator with a Creole language and culture option, with the rank of educational advisor, in each of the four ZEPs. Their mission was made public in 1991: "To foster new relations between the school, family and social environments, by facilitating exchanges between Creole-speaking parents, children and schools. Raise awareness of the differences between the two linguistic codes in the phonetic, phonological, syntactic, lexical and semantic domains"

The teaching of the two languages

Today, this contrastive approach to teaching the two languages is firmly established and supervised at all levels of school education in Martinique. This framework is validated and institutionalized at national level in the new concept of regional languages. These are now referred to as "living regional languages" (LVR), and benefit from the same organizational scheme as that for the teaching of living foreign languages (LVE). It is within this general framework that the French Ministry of Education has published specific instructions for the teaching of Creole specialties.

"Specialized teaching of regional languages, literatures and cultures in Creole aims to help students discover the specific features of different Creole areas and the elements they have in common. Born of encounters between populations, the French Creole-speaking world stretches from the Indian Ocean to the Americas. It includes Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Martinique and Réunion. The aim of this course is to provide an approach to Creole languages, literatures and cultures, in all their diversity and unity. In addition to an in-depth knowledge of a Creole area and the precise study of a Creole language, students are encouraged to discover works from other areas. In class, they are therefore interested in the Creole culture of their area, but are also led to discover different Creole spaces." in Bulletin officiel de l'Éducation nationale number 28 of July 11, 2019.

Among the works proposed in this circular are books in Creole drawn from the abundant literary output of Térèz Léotin, a former cultural mediator and teacher who was an activist for the Creole cause from the outset. It's a tribute to a job well done.

K.Éditions, the Creole language in publishing and the Academy

A Creole publishing house. Founded in 2003, K.Éditions is a Martinican publishing house based in Ducos. It has developed a generalist publishing policy in Creole and French. Founded by Martinican writer Jean-Marc Rosier, whose initial ambition was to publish only works in the Creole language of Martinique and the Caribbean, K.Éditions opened its catalog to French-language works in 2006. K.Éditions invokes, summons and provokes history as a beacon of awareness. Its mission is to remind the people of Martinique and the world, through the gemellity of its intellectual radius, that it is vital to remember in order to be, remain and become.

The publishing house stands out for its original graphic identity and its high-quality works. In addition to literature, its catalog includes texts from the humanities (sociology, history, philosophy, etc.), the arts (painting, sculpture, photography, etc.) and spirituality.

K.Éditions is taking part in the officialization of the alphabet proposed by GEREC. K.Éditions pays particular attention to its authors, encouraging their creativity and promoting the recognition of their talent, around Martinican writers such as George Eleuthère Mauvois, Édouard De Lépine, Térèz Léotin, Nicole Cage, Hugues Barthéléry, Roger Ébion, Romain Bellay, Daniel Boukman, Olivier Pulvar, Serghe Kéclard, Charles-Henri Fargues and many others. Key works from Martinique's literary heritage have been published, including the reissue of Mémoire d'un vonvon by Tonton Dumoco (a well-known author from pre-1902 Saint-Pierre), Kandid oben l'Optimizm, a Martinican Creole translation of Voltaire's masterpiece (by Vilarson and Jean-Pierre Arsaye), Boudoum (Jounal artis kréyol Matinik) and many other titles. Literary awards: Mangotine et la bête à Man Ibè by Danièle Bernini-Montbrand, Fetkann literary prize, youth category in 2011: Les Mots de silence by Loran Kristian, Carbet de la Caraïbe et du Tout-monde 2021 prize.

Akadémi Kréyol Matinik (AKM). It is a cultural association governed by the law of July¹ 1901. Founded in 2022 on the initiative of writers, publishers, certified teachers of LVR (living regional language) Creole, professors of literature, managers, doctor in Creole language and culture, treasurers, retirees, and a graphic designer, its aim is to study, practice, defend, illustrate and promote the Creole language, literature and culture of Martinique. It organizes cultural meetings and events, and is the originator of the Grand Prix de littérature créole called Matinoya. It publishes books and other media in Martinique Creole, and honors exemplary figures from the Creole cultural worlds of Martinique and beyond. The association is made up of sympathizing members, adherents, active members, honorary members and benefactors. The Akadémi Kréyol Matinik's mission is to promote the major Creole works of Martinique's literary heritage and their authors.