It has been observed that in post-colonial Mauritius, linguistic practices are an important way for Hindus, Christians, Muslims, and/or Indo-, Franco-, Afro-and Sino-Mauritians to construct, assert or redefine their ethnic, religious and national identities. In the past, Muslims used Arabic and/or their ancestral language(s) in their religious practices and also, to define their religious identity. It has been noted that nowadays, imams tend to make increasing use of Mauritian Creole (MC) for preaching. This paper analyses the role of MC in the religious practices of Mauritian Muslims. The history of the Muslims in Mauritius and their present socioeconomic situation are briefly discussed. Their religious practices and the ways in which they construct their religious identity are described. Results from a survey analysing the use of and attitudes to the use of MC in the religious activities of twenty-five Muslims are reported. Attitudes to the use of MC in these practices are discussed with respect to the above findings. It is shown that the use of MC in the mosque is not perceived of as a movement towards the creolisation of the Islamic faith and a threat to the maintenance of Muslim religious practices on the island.
Mauritian Creole (Kreol) is a French-lexified creole spoken on post-colonial and multilingual Mauritius. Although it is extensively used, it has not been officially standardised. The choice of a given orthography reflects language beliefs and is therefore ideologically loaded. More specifically, the way creoles are standardised can reflect the bias towards these languages which are seen as inferior to, and dependent on, their lexifiers. In the Mauritian case, this issue is especially significant because there are now efforts to devise an official standard for the language. In 2004, the Government set up a committee to develop a standard orthography for MC. This paper considers use of, and attitudes to, written Kreol. The material presented is based on interviews conducted in Mauritius and participant observation. Although interviewees do not make extensive use of Kreol in written interactions, they tend to support the promotion of literacy in the language. Responses highlight the tension between Kreol and the colonial languages — English and French — and also the role of Kreol as an index of national identity. Our findings confirm that the choice of an orthographic system reflects linguistic and social hierarchies. I conclude that this study has practical social implications for the standardisation of Kreol.
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