What Language Did Toussaint Louverture Speak? The Fort de Joux Memoir and the Origins of Haitian Kreyol

With the help of contemporary accounts, letters drafted by former slaves, and the memoir written by Toussaint Louverture shortly before his death, this article attempts to recreate the language spoken by Haitian revolutionaries and, in particular, Louverture. Detailed historical and linguistic analy...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Annales : histoire, sciences sociales (French ed.) sciences sociales (French ed.), 2013-01, Vol.68 (1), p.109-132
Main Author: Girard, Philippe R
Format: Article
Language:fre
Subjects:
African Languages
Audiences
Autobiographical Materials
Europe
France
Language
Linguistics
Slavery
Working Class
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:With the help of contemporary accounts, letters drafted by former slaves, and the memoir written by Toussaint Louverture shortly before his death, this article attempts to recreate the language spoken by Haitian revolutionaries and, in particular, Louverture. Detailed historical and linguistic analysis of these sources shows that Louverture wrote predominantly in French, only employed Kreyol orally (especially when addressing a working-class audience), and rarely used the Ewe-Fon language of his Arada ancestors. His memoir suggests that Haitian Kreyol, which some linguists think derived from African languages, was more influenced by archaic, popular or regional variants of French. Louverture's preference for French also reinforces theses that describe him as a moderate figure inclined toward the European model. Adapted from the source document.
ISSN:0395-2649