Bending the wood, she wove it into a simple circlet, chanting in a patois of Gaelic and Cherokee as she did. Magic thickened in the air around her, shimmering in a haze outside the chalk circle. The veil between the mortal world and Faerie thinned and Cennetig stepped through.
A diminutive half-breed, he was part Cherokee Fae and part Gaelic Fae. His long black hair had some of the curl of his European ancestors, but it surrounded a brown face. Antlers, still sheathed with the buff velvet of spring, grew from his forehead. His curls twined around their base like dark foam. “Well met!” Then he frowned and pointed at the bloody circlet in her hands. “Eva…what have you there?”
Say you’re a white writer. Pasty, pasty white writer. You’ve got a mixed character in your story. What should you do?
a) describe him like a person
b) describe him as a “half-breed”
c) make him the villain, who dies
If you picked everything other than a, congratulations: you are Mary Robinette Kowal.
What the fuck is a “patois of Gaelic and Cherokee” anyway? How does that work linguistically?
So this is some awful story about fae something. It’s hard to tell through the seething mess of absolutely shit prose just what it is about, so I didn’t bother trying, I think some dude gets kidnapped because a couple fae died of hotdogs (no, really) or something. Kowal is one of those authors whose greatest talent is in putting words together in grammatically correct sentences but who aren’t capable of anything beyond that–this isn’t just “workmanlike,” it’s tech-manual. Even if you don’t care about the racism–in which case eat shit–you’d still have to convince me this writing is in some remote, vague way competent, which I’m going to say is an indefensible argument:
The historian strode up the hill from their car with his gear slung over one shoulder. “You could bring them with you, you know.” His English was perfect, only the rolled R and lilt betraying his origins. Well, that and the way he moved like a runway model straight from Milan.
[...]
“It’s not like we can just go to a settlement to check.” To be more accurate, no one had been invited to a settlement and returned in a timely manner. Standard protocol was to decline an invitation, no matter how tempting. The story of Thomas the Rhymer was a hard-core cautionary tale, even in North America.
Eva had no wish to be taken under the earth for a score of years. To say nothing of the fact that she had no True Love like Janet in the story to pull her from the Faerie Queen’s hunt.
The “His English was perfect” is how you can tell the author is American.
How about this wonderful info-dump that might have come out of some White Wolf manual:
The rituals to call Fae had distinctive regional variations, and Tennessee was notably different from England. The Fae who’d come over with the European settlers had not caused a pandemic among the local Fae population of America in the same way the human settlers had. They’d intermarried with the local Native American Fae and left interesting pockets of mixed culture. Because Fae lived so much longer than humans, much of the blending was still fairly new in their terms. Only one or two generations in most places.
Sometimes, if you were really lucky, you could find a Fae who’d been alive during the colonial times. When that happened, it was a godsend to historians of human habitation, like Giancarlo. They had been coming to the hill every weekend for the last three months.
I mean, try defending that as good writing. Try it. I’ll dump a bucket of rotten fish on you. It’s so mundane I’ve seen more evocative writing from tech journalists covering an Apple keynote. What the everloving fuck are “Native American Fae” anyway? Do they even have “Fae” as part of their mythos or is this just a case of whitey imposing their shit on everything?
Her knife was on the branch to cut another, when she heard an aborted yelp from the camp. Giancarlo.
Was the yelp aborted during the second trimester?
Drinking game: take a sip every time the word “Cherokee” comes up. What’s rather amazing that Kowal manages to white-wash even despite obsessively tacking “Cherokee” onto everything (“a mud-and-daub house in the Cherokee style,” “Cherokee basketry but mixed with Celtic knot-work,” “a curious blending of Cherokee and Italian traditions”) for culturally appropriative fun and profit. Cennetig here sports an Irish name and there’s a Spanish Nita, and finally Salali, which the Internet tells me is a Cherokee name. Given how much is made of the whole “part Cherokee” thing you’d expect to have seen more of that, but nope.
“What do you have?” Nita asked.
“Um…. It’s a magic rock.”
“I believe you mean a smart phone. I was wondering what model you used.”
“I—um…. It’s a GSB Sensibility. The 900 model.”
This must’ve seemed witty and clever at some point. I’ve no idea what that point might have been.
If he killed the redbird with a steel knife, Nita’s husband would be forever dead. Nita bellowed and shifted fully into a bear. She swiped at Cennetig, paw bouncing off the protection that Eva had unthinkingly given him.
What is this, WoW fanfiction featuring a night elf druid? Presumably she’s a healer who decided to go bear for some reason and just taunted the boss while the rest of the raid erupts into screams of WHYYYY as everyone in the back is cleaved to death.
From the door of the house, Nita stepped into the clearing. She raised her hands and wove a spell, flinging it at them. The magic twisted into vines in the air, which reached toward them.
Eva flinched, unable to think of a counter-spell fast enough.
Yep, WoW fanfiction. Sorry Eva, you can’t counter root. Time to trinket!
All the years of research and working in the field of Native magic fled Eva’s understanding.
“Native magic.” My eyes kind of bugged out a bit here.
“He did not deserve you.” Cennetig trembled against Eva. “Just because he was a pureblood—”
“What do I care about blood? I did not love you.” The wind blew Nita’s hair in a gust without touching the leaves around them. “I loved Salali.” She leaned her cheek against the redbird on her shoulder and closed her eyes. “I love him still.”
So, the “half-breed” villain’s motivation to turn villainous is that he believes a woman rejected him on account of him being mixed. Oh, joy.
Swearing, Eva snatched a handful of grass. It wasn’t the best conduit, but it was what she had. Braiding it with shaking hands, she twisted it into a Celtic knot and pulled a distraction around her. Eva got to her feet and Cennetig didn’t seem to notice. He kept swiping at the redbird, which seemed determined to keep him from getting to Nita.
Just a reminder, friends. The “half-breed” part Cherokee Fae gets defeated by, essentially, white people magic.
And suppose that the shit writing (“He’d turned their contract into an insanely powerful protection for himself”) and the racism don’t bother you–in which case are you an amoeba?–what you’re left with is an insipid take on the already insipid “fae kidnap a human something true love something” idea. It’s a regurgitation done without skill, with an extra dose of racism nobody asked for.
“WTF did not even begin to cover it,” as the story’s deathless parlance would have it.
ronanwills
/ November 14, 2012Whenever I see that a story involves fairies living in the modern world my brain immediately shuts down. I’ve literally never seen anything worthwhile come from that concept (this also applies to angels/demons and greek and roman goddesses and related mythological figures).
If you’re going to do this “fantasy in modern times” thing just make up your own fantasy bits. Show a little creativity, people.
I’m amazed at how often this phrase still comes up (looking at you, Stephen King), especially when it comes to native Americans. I kind of assumed this is the sort of thing we’d realize was self-evidently a pretty racist thing to say.
I know this is only a minor point compared to the main faily elements, but it always bothers me when people use the word “Gaelic” in this sort of context because it’s totally meaningless- “Gaelic” isn’t a language any more than European is a language. There are three modern Gaelic languages and they’re pretty different from each other, so unless this dude is speaking all of them simultaneously I have no idea what’s supposed to be going on here. Likewise, what’s a “Gaelic Fae”? Which mythology is she drawing from here? What type of fairy is he, anyway? Nothing makes sense my brain hurts
angelrenoir
/ November 14, 2012Braiding it with shaking hands, she twisted it into a Celtic knot and pulled a distraction around her.
“Pulled a distraction around her”? DISTRACTION??? What is that? Some new type of barrier? WHAT??? Really, now. Even RPG spells have better names than that.
Also, what Celtic knot, you fuckwad? One would think that knotwork required to do magic would be one of the knots with names and meaning, not just a random shape. According to my history teacher, Celtic weaves/knots are pretty much just decoration to the Celts. There were only a few exceptions, like the Triquetra or the Celtic cross. So using a random knot shape would be akin to using ribbons and lace to cast the magic spell. That is just stupid.
the twisted spinster
/ November 14, 2012Many Native American tribes have legends of “little people” that are sort of similar to European legends of “little people” (they’re little, they live in the woods/hills/caves, they’re mischievous, don’t mess with them) which makes me wonder how much contamination from colonial days has effected the original sources… but as for “fae” in the sense Kowal seems to mean that just sounds like some made-up bullshit of the sort that is inexplicably popular now. Anyway, I looked her up, because her name was vaguely familiar. I still don’t know where I heard it, but apparently she won awards for her writing. All I can say is when I was young awards weren’t given out so cavalierly. She’s also apparently a puppeteer and has won awards for that so there you go.
Anyway, fantasy has become such a stagnant, boring genre, and racism destroys everything it touches including creativity as we can see here (“half-breed”? seriously, in the 21st century?). I tried to at least skim the story but was stopped dead at the first paragraph where the heroine “hollered” at someone. Old farm women holler for their dogs or husbands — young, pretty heroines do not “holler” unless you’re trying to be funny, and I don’t think the author was going for that.
Athena Andreadis (@AthenaHelivoy)
/ November 14, 2012I found the story both franken-stapled and twee, despite its attempts at mythic depth. None of the characters or concepts go beyond broad stereotyping-by-shorthand; and although the premise is interesting on paper, its execution is ham-handed and self-congratulatory.
Inverarity
/ November 14, 2012You know what? A little-known litfic author named Marly Youmans already wrote this story. The Curse of the Raven Mocker and Ingledove are MG/YA books, but the prose in them is far superior to this, and Youmans treated the territory Kowal is treading here – the people and the folklore of that region really are a mix of Cherokee and Scots-Irish settlers – like someone who actually knows and respects the place. Like it’s a place full of history and wonder and mythology, and real people who aren’t constantly thinking in terms of their ethnic identities.
Kowal seems to have taken a look at the region and thought, “Cool, Celtic-Cherokee faeries!” “Native magic” indeed.
welltemperedwriter
/ November 14, 2012Now those sound like they’d be a good read…have spent a fair amount of time in that region and it’d be a great setting, done right.
Rose Lemberg (@RoseLemberg)
/ November 14, 2012What the fuck is a “patois of Gaelic and Cherokee” anyway? How does that work linguistically?
Patois is not a word I see in socioling frequently (thankfully), mainly because of the negative associations with the word. Searching LLBA right now, I found only 71 peer-reviewed articles that use “patois”, most of which clarify that they are talking about a pidgin or a creole (as opposed to thousands of articles on pidgins and creoles). A charitable interpretation of “patois of Gaelic and Cherokee” would assume the author meant a pidgin, though if this is the people’s native language it would be a creole and we should expect the speakers to call it something (nobody calls their language a “patois of Gaelic and Cherokee”). However, from bitter personal experience, authors tend to know very little about (socio)linguistics and the pidgin/creole situations in particular. Talking about pidgins/creoles requires a fair degree of sensitivity, because of colonialism contexts in which many such languages arise, and the traditional negative attitudes towards pidgins and creoles from all kinds of “purists”. I can go on if this is of interest.
acrackedmoon
/ November 14, 2012Yes! I also thought it had a colonialist connotation, not just a synonym for “dialect that’s made of a mix of other languages.”
Do please go on.
Mary Robinette Kowal (@MaryRobinette)
/ November 14, 2012This is VERY much of interest.
Since I am rewriting this, may I offer my intent to see if you can suggest more appropriate wording? My thought was that this was not a true language yet. Because of the longevity traditionally associated with both the Little People of the Cherokee traditions and the Fae of the various Gaelic traditions, I thought that we were likely still dealing with the first and beginnings of the second generations.
From my admittedly limited readings, patois seemed like the correct word but I was not aware that there was a negative connotation associated with it. My fault, but the story is in electronic form so I can address that now that I know.
green_knight
/ November 16, 2012From my admittedly limited readings, patois seemed like the correct word but I was not aware that there was a negative connotation associated with it.
I am, I admit, completely baffled by this. Two minutes with Google brings up
Class distinctions are embedded in the term, drawn between those who speak patois and those who speak the standard or dominant language used in literature and public speaking, (Wikipedia)
and
the dialect of a particular region, especially one with low status in relation to the standard language of the country (OED)
I think it’s great that you face down the things you messed up, but I would posit that there was no need to get them wrong in the first place.
Another point that stands out to me is that the colonial viewpoint creeps in very early in ‘Gaelic and Cherokee,’ which sets a tone, just as ‘Native American Fae’ shines a colonial light on them from the outside, and I think that’s a real problem for the story – it’s told through the eyes of someone who has no idea what they’re doing, an outsider, and I get very little sense of awareness from her: she has studied magic, but she isn’t living it.
Mary Robinette Kowal
/ November 19, 2012What she’s speaking when I use patois isn’t a language. It’s a spell that’s she’s cobbled together from two different languages that she doesn’t speak. I understand why it’s the wrong word now.
And yes, you’re right about the colonialism of the language I’m using to describe the various Hidden People. That, unfortunately, was a deliberate choice, which I’m reconsidering. At the time, my thinking was that IF magic really worked like this, our university systems, which are white European dominated, would have established language based on Europe in much the same way that there’s History and Black History. So it seemed logical to me that the university system in this world would lump the European designation on everything. I’m not saying that this is the right choice, but that it seemed consistent.
I need to either hang a flag on it so it’s clear that’s what is happening, or change it. At the moment my inclination is to change it.
green_knight
/ November 19, 2012(reply to @MaryRobinette below, but the reply link has vanished at that level)
our university systems, which are white European dominated, would have established language based on Europe
This actually disappoints me – I thought that Gaelic/Cherokee spells were a bit of cool worldbuilding alerting us to the fact that English _wasn’t_ as dominant as it is in our world, and that there had been alliances behind the back of the English.
a spell that’s she’s cobbled together from two different languages that she doesn’t speak
bothers me tremendously, because language does not work like that.
Quoth Google translate: “If you take any words and it comes together somehow throw out mostly just bullshit.”
[Wenn man irgendwelche Worte nimmt und sie irgendwie zusammenschmeißt kommt meistens nur gequirlte Scheiße raus.]
Google translate, in all honesty, is a lot better at translating than people who don’t speak a language – and if you try to combine two languages in any meaningful manner… let’s just say that very few authors have pulled this off, and they’re people who *do* speak both languages.
You don’t expect someone who’s never used tools to walk into a junkyard and build a robot, someone who has no idea of chemistry to walk into a lab and produce something useful.
Mary Robinette Kowal (@MaryRobinette)
/ November 14, 2012This is really well timed because I was in the middle of a rewrite of this to address some of the concerns about racism that Lavie Tidhar brought to my attention at WFC. Thanks in particular for pointing out the bit about the white magic winning at the end, since that slipped past all of my readers. The fault is completely my own, but the story is doing pretty much the opposite of what I wanted it to do.
So, thank you for your candor.
the twisted spinster
/ November 14, 2012Hmm. A story that is doing “pretty much the opposite of what I wanted it to do” doesn’t sound like something that should have been released to the general public in any form until I had taken myself in hand and forced that story to do what I damn well wanted to do. In other words, this excuse sounds too much like the “my characters just say and do those things! I’m only telling their story!” responsibility-avoiding nonsense.
Mary Robinette Kowal (@MaryRobinette)
/ November 14, 2012Agreed. Based on the readers I sent it to, which included people of Cherokee heritage and writers of color who write about issues of race, I had reason to think I was in the clear on the race and colonialism issues. The points being raised here did not come up but are clearly on the page. That is my fault. I don’t believe in an ephemeral muse. The mistakes are mine.
Fortunately, the story is in electronic format so I can address the issues. I am grateful that this dialogue is happening and that people are taking the time to speak candidly about the places where I screwed up.
Athena Andreadis (@AthenaHelivoy)
/ November 14, 2012I was in a script class once in which someone presented a scenario of spacefaring Plains Indians and the protagonist wielded a magic sword. I pointed out that these nations did not use swords. He, and most of the participants, couldn’t care less. They wanted the soupçon of “exoticity” without having to do even basic research.
This story reminded me of that. If a reading group consists of people who haven’t ventured past their armchairs culturally, such outcomes are very likely. Equally likely are verdicts along the lines of “The way you depict your own culture is inauthentic because it doesn’t jibe with my McDonaldized understanding of it”. (MacDonald in both senses of the word)
Rose Lemberg (@RoseLemberg)
/ November 14, 2012Hm, I am logged in with Twitter, but it is not letting me reply to other comments. It is very frustrating.
@requireshate: since I want to give this a thoughtful and serious treatment, this will have to wait till the evening my time (Central) after I get off work and finish my other obligations. But it is coming.
@maryrobinettekowal: I am glad to hear you want to address this, and my future response should help. Generally speaking, “My thought was that this was not a true language yet” is an unfortunate pitfall into which many people fall to discredit and marginalize speech of non-dominant groups. Generally speaking, a language is whatever the speak natively (as opposed to second language learners). So, for example, if two groups come in contact, be it through colonialism or trade or some other scenario, and in some contexts the speakers begin to speak a pidgin, i.e. some variant which incorporates elements of both, then this pidgin is a language. Yes, it might be a language that is changing more rapidly than other variants around it. Yes, this language might not have a written variant, might not signal dominance or prestige when spoken, might be denigrated by speakers of the dominant variant. It might be even denigrated by the speakers themselves, who may absorb this attitude from the dominant group(s). Nevertheless, it is a language, and should be treated with the same respect you would treat a dominant language. You don’t *have* to do it, as we see so very often. But you should. Language is an integral part of a person’s identity and their relationship to their culture(s). Thus, whatever it is that they speak should be treated with respect.
I have just finished a fantasy epic novel which features a linguist, and linguistics and sociolinguistics are central to my story, so it is very much on my mind. I am also a scholar working and teaching in this area. In my novel, I avoided present-day terminology as much as possible. It is important that you ask yourself why, for what reasons, it is important for you to state that the language is a pidgin, or a fusion language, or find a different term. Why is it important for your story? How does it add to the humanity of your characters? How do they feel about their language(s)? Are they bilingual, and if so, in what? Are they even noticing that they are speaking a pidgin? Why is it important for readers to notice? Thinking about those issues might bring you closer to the core of your characters’ relationships with their language(s) and culture(s) than labels will. Labels by themselves are not explanatory, and overusing them is so easy, but also so easily leads to dehumanization. Why? Because our social science disciplines arose from a strong background of colonialism and othering, and even though we spent decades fighting this and decolonizing ourselves, these origins are so, so important.
@requireshate – I am sorry, it is going to look like I did not respond at all to you while writing a thesis to Mary Robinette; this is simply because I must give a thoughtful treatment to the issue of colonialism and language or it will be bullshit, and I need time for this. So more later.
Ack, and now I am almost late to teach my class.
Mary Robinette Kowal (@MaryRobinette)
/ November 14, 2012Thank you for that very clear response.
I am now wondering if part of the problem lies in that the person who is doing the chanting is not speaking a native speaker of either of the core languages. I’ll have to look at this and think about how to fix it.
Again, thank you for taking time to respond.
Polenth Blake (@Polenth)
/ November 14, 2012@MaryRobinette – A number of Native American cultures have fairies in the folklorist sense of the word – which is a general category of creatures. But it’s like grouping swans, bats and honey bees as flying animals, so we can analyse their flight. At the same time, we know they’re very different.
You’ve used fae as though they are a singular thing, much as humans are all the same species regardless of where in the world they’re from. And in doing that, you’ve chosen a generic European version as the default way, with the Cherokee stories as a variation, rather than a thing in their own right.
I’m not sure this story is really fixable, but advice for future would be to resist the urge to simplify classification, especially when some of the things are from other cultures. When someone says, “They’re kind of like our fairies,” it’s meant to give you a starting point to understanding. It doesn’t mean they become European fairies, with a few slightly different cultural practices.
Rose Lemberg (@RoseLemberg)
/ November 14, 2012@polenth, while I agree with what you said, I want to point out that it has been a very long while since I have seen “fairy” as a general term in folkloristics for what is commonly known as “small [nature/household] spirits.” “Fairy” is a recognizably Western/English world which is no longer used in literature for describing non-Anglo-Western cultures and traditions, and with good reasons. Not using “fairy,” and using instead a culture-specific term, as well as a generalized term ([nature/forest/household] spirits) is a part of the discipline’s effort to decolonize itself.
Emil Söderman
/ November 14, 2012“I found only 71 peer-reviewed articles that use “patois”, most of which clarify that they are talking about a pidgin or a creole (as opposed to thousands of articles on pidgins and creoles).”
I’ve always understood it as a pidgin being by definition a temporary, non-native language (the definition I heard was that no one has a pidgin as their mother-tongue, while people do for creoles) “patois” I’ve always understood to be more of a personal thing: Not a formalized dialect or language, but more of the way an individual speaks. But then again, my sociolinguistics textbook never used it. (while it did provide definitions for creole and pidgin)
Rose Lemberg (@RoseLemberg)
/ November 15, 2012This is a general response that does not touch upon the book discussed here, as I have not read it, nor am I familiar with the Gaelic/Cherokee situation. Instead, I am going to address @requireshate’s more general query as to how the processes of language contact often interact with colonialism. In the interests of full disclosure, I am 1) an academic working in this area, 2) a multilingual directly affected by processes of language attrition and death; I have reclaimed the language my family lost as a result of hegemonic violence and systemic erasure. I cannot stuff all I know into a comment, simply because issues are very complex and varied.
Brace yourselves, this is going to be long.
If two linguistic groups are in close contact, new languages may arise. A very common scenario is the process of pidginization/creolization.
A pidgin is usually defined as variant which arises when two or more linguistic groups come in contact; it usually has simplified vocabulary and syntax; it usually has no native speakers. I say usually because there also are extended pidgins, which have complex vocabulary and syntax. A creole is a pidgin that has acquired native speakers (i.e. second-generation pidgin); a creole as a rule develops extended vocabulary and syntax in opposition to a pidgin, though a creole that has developed from an extended pidgin (which already has complex vocabulary and syntax) may not change that much.
While pidginization/creolization is a common scenario, there are other scenarios, such as fusion languages, and scenarios which do not, strictly speaking, lead to the creation of lasting new variants, such as language attrition and death. All of those processes tend to be of great emotional significance to speakers and cultures, as they directly touch upon issues of identity, belonging, displacement, and access to one’s cultural heritage, which is very often encoded through a specific language or languages. These processes are also very often tied to issues of power, prestige, and hegemony.
Languages do not randomly come in such a close contact as to generate new variants. There are a few common scenarios, most centrally trade, multi-ethnic work environments, slavery, and colonialism. Note that there are more than two sides to this equation, which may be balanced or unbalanced in terms of power, so let us consider each of these scenarios separately.
Trade: a pidgin arises between two or more language groups who engage in trade, e.g.the Yimas-Alamblak pidgin (Tanim Tok) in New Guinea. While pidgins are said to often arise from trade, I personally believe that this is no longer the main scenario for pidginization due to the prominence of colonial processes to language generation. Note that there is no obvious power imbalance in the creation of a trade pidgin – multiple sides participate as equals.
Multi-ethnic work environments: developed in multiethnic crews, e.g. Melanesian Pidgin English was first used by multiethnic whaling ship crews in the Pacific; Fanagalo is a language used by miners and is one of the rare example of Pidgins and Creoles based on an indigenous language (in this case, Zulu) rather than on a colonizing language.
Slavery: not that different from multiethnic work environments except the power balance is completely different. Here, multiple ethnic groups are forced together in a context alien to them, say on a plantation. This scenario is so common that some scholars speak of “plantation creoles.” There has been some recent literature that suggests these creoles started forming already in Africa, in interactions between white slave traders and the colonized. Both theories show creolization as a process in which the enslaved form or continue to develop a new language using the colonizing power’s language. An example of this process is the Haitian Creole, with French at its base; though the exact processes that gave rise to Haitian Creole are not documented, it is a language that arose as a result of colonialism and slavery, even if trade has been a component. The process is similar for Gullah Creole, which has English at its base. Some scholars claim that AAVE (African-American Vernacular English) is a Creole, since it shares grammatical features with other Creoles and is likely have arisen through similar processes; others dispute this. Note again the power imbalance: such languages tend to draw heavily on the hegemonic language, but the speakers of hegemonic languages look down upon the speakers of such languages (more on this below).
Colonialism: Please consult this list of English Creoles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-based_creole_languages, most of which arose as a result of colonialisms. An English Creole can compete with indigenous languages and may endanger or marginalize the indigenous languages, in a process not dissimilar to that of World Englishes. Again, the power imbalance is present, since this process is a direct result of colonization.
There are other scenarios, but I think this is good for now.
Attitudes.
Native speakers of creoles and of other languages that arose from power-unbalanced contact tend to be denigrated by speakers of hegemonic languages. Such words as “jargon”, “slang”, “patois”, “broken language,” “broken speech,” and such adjectives as “low-brow,” “uneducated,” “substandard.” and worse are used to indicate that the native speakers of creoles and other languages that arose through contact phenomena are somehow lesser than native speakers of hegemonic, often colonizing languages. This is so pervasive that even Wikipedia, which is supposed to be unbiased, says this about Haitian creole: “Yet another theory is that in attempt to learn the informal French of the White colonists and the Free black Creoles, African imports butchered the French patois spoken to and around them.”
What the EVERLASTING FUCK, dear Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia.
Back to regular scholarly scheduling: we must, we absolutely must think about what it means to perpetuate these linguistic stereotypes.
Every time you hear things like “they are butchering the language”, or “they cannot even speak English properly” said about a native speaker, the processes of power, prestige (often associated with class and race divides), and often forces of colonialism and oppression are at play through linguistic judgments. To say “his English was perfect” is a value judgment that is very deeply rooted in race and class privilege.
Creoles and similar languages often struggle with recognition and literacy. E.g. Haitian Creole was recognized as a state language only in 1961. French served as literary language, which is to say the language of prestige and literacy was the language of colonizing power. Since literary languages are gateways to status and power through education and advancement, such situations (by no means unique to Haitian Creole) are often stratified by race and class, where the disempowered have less access to a hegemonic language and thus advance less.
I think this is enough for now. @requires, I may repost this later on my own blog. Questions and thoughts most welcome.
aliettedb
/ November 15, 2012@rose_lemberg: thank you very much for this! Not overly familiar with the creole/pidgin overtones (much, much more familiar with the pruning of dialects within the frame of a hegemony), but just as a comment: “patois” originated in France as a description of all non-Parisian languages. It already had a strong negative connotation, but it became very, er, unsavory when France enforced a brutal policy of language reduction in the 19th Century that culminated in nearly everyone speaking French (Parisian French) as their first language and in the disappearance of “patois” (the word being used as a derogatory term to make it clear that the other French dialects were inferior, backward and entirely worth suppressing).
(not going to go into the French policy of language teaching and “inferior” language suppression in their own colonies as it has no direct relevance to the matter at hand, but of course that also happened)
Mary Robinette Kowal
/ November 15, 2012This is fantastic. Thank you.
saajanpatel
/ November 17, 2012Wow, very educational response – timely for me as I was just reading about discrimination via language use. Thank you Ms. Lemberg!
acrackedmoon
/ November 18, 2012Thank you. This is an awesome explanation.
Rose Lemberg (@RoseLemberg)
/ November 15, 2012Emil, “patois” is an originally derogatory term associated with such qualities as clumsiness, rudeness, inappropriateness, etc. You will find such characterizations as “butchering”, “bastardization,” “backwardness” etc connected to “patois.” When in doubt, please look it up. While certain speakers might use “patois” do describe their own language, and currently Jamaican Patois is so called in ling. literature, I would avoid using patois because of its strong negative connotations.
Regarding pidgin: it is not “temporary by definition.” Trade pidgins can exist for prolonged periods of time. Please read my longer comment about those matters and see if it helps?
Rose Lemberg (@RoseLemberg)
/ November 15, 2012@aliette, yes, thank you for bringing up that background. As far as I remember, they were not only using patois to describe non-dominant dialects, but also to describe Breton (a Gaelic language) and later creoles and other languages that arose from contact under French colonial regimes. I just feel that it is not for non-speakers of these dialects and languages to reclaim “patois” as a general term for a language that arose from contact.
Emil Söderman
/ November 16, 2012I meant temporary as a in “used in particular contexts” not “used for a particulra time”. It’s a bit f a mistranslation on my part. The point in the textbook (originally written in swedish) being that pidgins are spoken as second languages between members in a particular context (such as multilingual crews, or for speaking with merchants) not that they were not long-lating
I do wonder though, would the old european trade languages (there’s a swedish one for chimney swepers for intance) count as pidgins? I know many of them have influences from various romani languages.
Rose Lemberg (@RoseLemberg)
/ November 16, 2012Emil, I am sorry, but pidgins – especially trade pidgins – can and have been long-lasting. Yes, pidgins are not, as a rule, native languages, though it is not as clear-cut as introduction textbooks suggest. There is a fair amount of fluctuations; scenarios vary, though it is not 101 level. Occupational language varieties you are talking about are not pidgins per se, since they did not directly emerge as a result of contact phenomena, even if they do incorporate lexicon from other languages. Some scholars use “jargon” to describe occupational/professional varieties, but I am not a big fan of the word, even in professional contexts.
Emil Söderman
/ November 17, 2012” can and have been long-lasting.”
Yes, that’s what I said. (“not that they were not long-lasting”)
passacalle
/ December 7, 2012@RoseLemberg “Every time you hear things like “they are butchering the language”, or “they cannot even speak English properly” said about a native speaker, the processes of power, prestige (often associated with class and race divides), and often forces of colonialism and oppression are at play through linguistic judgments. To say “his English was perfect” is a value judgment that is very deeply rooted in race and class privilege.”
Yep. Objectively, there is no reason to dislike Malaysian English; it is pleasant to listen to and does a perfectly good job of communicating information. Thus, the only reason to dislike it is because you have made a value judgment.
My wife is Malaysian Chinese, and came to the UK for university when she was 18. I met her some years later when she was my boss in a law firm in London, by which point she had deliberately eradicated most of the Malaysian traces in her accent (more accurately, I should say that she had intentionally trained herself to use a blander accent reflexively; she can still mine her teenage accent when she wants to or when she’s arguing with her mum and forgets herself). Growing up it was absolutely an issue for her that she perceived and was ashamed of her accent, which to her meant provincialism and unsophistication; as an adult, it no longer has the same signifiers to her.
Mary Robinette Kowal (@MaryRobinette)
/ March 7, 2013Thank you all again. I’ve made an attempt to revise the story and to talk about the process, if you are interested. http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com/journal/revising-weaving-dreams/
A direct link to the revised story is: http://www.maryrobinettekowal.com/writing/wip/weaving-dreams-revised/ The password is APEX