By: Laura Lewis

GOUYAVE, St.John’s: “Vini!”* - A St. Lucian or Dominican would have no problems understanding this statement. Few Grenadians would understand it. It comes from the language “Patois”, a form of French.

Sure, on our Spice Island we still have numerous towns and villages that carry French names (Gouyave, Sauteurs, Beausejour, La Filette, La Mode, Perdmontemps, Chambord, Morne Jaloux, Duquesne) but few of the very residents of these places even realize that it’s French or know what the name means. We also have patois words blended into our Creole dialect; for example, bacchanal (quarrel), canboulay (carnival feast), pelau (rice and chicken dish. It is not uncommon to hear Grenadians say “oui” (yes) at the end of a statement. Yet we have lost the greater part of speaking patois.

The story is told that our grandparents used patois only to ‘shoo shoo’ (speak privately) in their children’s presence so they would not know what matter was being discussed – ‘mindin’ people business’ – and so, generations following them had no real knowledge of the language.

Now, most of the younger generation is not even interested in learning patois. There is no appetite for the language. This is a definite loss since knowing a second language can open windows of opportunities for tous le monde.**

* ‘Vini’ means come
** tous le monde means the whole world