Creole—a sauce, a dish . . . tomatoes, peppers, seasonings, rice—for some, this word is loaded with delicious implications of tastes and scents resulting from applied orders of scientific facts commonly called recipes—ingredients blended and cooked.
Where language is concerned, this savory blending of ingredient “facts” may serve an understanding of a spoken Creole. In both cases the tongue is messenger, its report pregnant with unique consequences of cultural interactions and the movements of peoples and nations within intimacies of the family abode. But spoken Creole presents evidences of such movements far more complex and revealing than even the most dynamic recipes.
Take, for example, speech within a winegrowing village in a valley in central Chile, under Spanish political rule but local French dominion, in the early to mid nineteenth century. There, the imperial languages of Spanish, French and English converged and infused affect, but the indigenous Mapuche and the Hindi dialect of indentured laborers transplanted from East India (by way of British Guiana) ruled the character of the community tongue. However prominent or subtle, blended epochs were present in the strategic negotiations between French merchants and Spanish governing officials, and no less in the vineyard conversation and chatter within homes of the locals, where Creole reigned.
Beyond the Chilean mountains and coastline that cradled the village, English made its ascent to the status of universal language, nearly unhindered by national boundaries. But the native language of an adopted son is more resistant. Such was the case with Poyāma. The tip of his tongue was trained under the influence of his father’s Hindi to maintain contact with the ridge joining hard and soft palates in the roof of his mouth. The result in English was an elimination of the th sound: the—de, another—anoter, brother/broter, nothing/noting, think/tink, etc . . . The strong tonal delivery of Mapuche—primarily his mother’s influence—left its lasting mark in ending consonants opposing connection: fast—fass, it’s—i’s, exist—exis, act—ac, can’t—can’ and so on.
Of course, we know that language is not merely tonal with various intermittent constrictions, but grammatical and directional as well. Some products of mixture expressed in a common tongue may be “cooked-up” with proper words but served in arrangements which are incoherent or humorous to the hearer. Others may present as oddly identical meanings, like, “your face is knowing” and “you look familiar,” or, “time for a smoke” and “jus now we knock a blow.” And somehow, if even by humor, confusion in the exchange concerning what is meant reveals meaning in the higher sense: origin, history, journey . . . things that matter personally and interpersonally. Word is not merely a vehicle for conveyance of a specifically defined meaning, but is inseparable from the existence, experience and expression of all that is meaningful. Whether speaking of it intentionally or not, Poyāma’s journey was ever on his tongue.