Nouns: People, places & things

Introduction

Nouns are really useful words we can use to name things. First, we’ll see how to talk about one thing (singular: shyin, 'dog') and more than one thing (plural: shyin-yé, 'the dogs'). Also, we’ll see how we can talk about something specific (shyin-la ‘the dog’), and something non-specific (in shyin ‘a dog’). Some languages classify nouns by gender. Nouns in Creole are like those in English, in the sense that they are are not typicallyclassified by gender. For some speakers of Creole, though, nouns can be masculine or feminine. In this book, we’ve decided not to include these forms. It introduces a lot of complications which are not necessary for beginning learners that this book is hoping to help, since you will still be speaking great Creole without including these features. Also, not all speakers of Creole do classify nouns by gender. It’s good to be aware of it, though, since you may hear it when listening to other speakers of Creole.

A note on variation

Here, as with everywhere in this book, you will see that there are a great deal of different ways of expressing the same sort of thing. For example, the word ‘languages’ might be translated as langaj, langaj-yé or lê langaj. This variation is completely normal: language is dynamic and diverse. Creole is a particularly beautiful example of this diversity. To do justice to the richness of the Creole language, we have attempted to include as many different forms as possible. All of these are equally valid, and you should not worry about any one being ‘more correct’ than any other. In choosing which forms to use, we suggest you practice your Creole as much as possible with people in your family, your community or online to a find a way of speaking which feels authentic.

Singular

Say we just want to talk about some dog, not a particular dog, just ‘a dog’. We say ‘a’ in Creole by using the word in:

in shyin a dog

Some people say un, so you can write it this way too. Also, if in comes before a vowel, it changes to ènn:

ènn œr an hour

There’s another way to mark a noun as non-specific, using nothing at all:

shyin a dog

If you want to talk about a specific thing, ‘the dog’, mark it with -la.

shyin-la the dog

Some people also use le, la before the noun.

Yé gin le drwat parlé. They have the right to speak.
La fenm apé péshé. The woman is fishing.

Plural

What about a bunch of dogs? In English, we add -s: one dog, two dogs.

Plain noun

In Creole, we can just use the noun on its own:

shyin ‘dogs’

Context will tell us whether we’re talking about one or more of something:

No gin poul, é no linm yê dézéf. ‘We have chickens, and we like their eggs.’

Noun + -yé

If we want to specify that a noun is plural, we can add -yé to the end:

Tou makak trouv sô piti-yé joli. ‘Every monkey thinks her children are pretty’ (proverb)

We can use -yé when we want to mark a specific plural noun:

Çété tô frèr ki volé poul-yé? Non, çé té vwazin-yé. ‘Did your brother steal the chickens? No, it was the neighbors.’

Another way to mark a specific plural noun is by combining the specificity marker -la (see above) and the plural marker -yé to form -layé.

To volé poul-layé? Non, çé té vwazin-layé. ‘Did your brother steal the chickens? No, it was the neighbors.’

Lê + Noun

Another way to make a noun plural is to add lê just before it. If you use this, you can’t use -yé in addition.

Kan to manj krébis, to sis lê tèt. ‘When I’m eating crawfish, I suck the heads’

Dê + Noun

If we want to talk about ‘some of’ something, we can use the word dê:

Mo mèt dê tomat dan mô gombo. ‘I put some tomatoes in my gumbo.’

Counting

Finally, if we’re counting something, we can just add the number - there’s no need to use -yé or lê here.

No gin sink poul, trò koshon épi ènn vyé korish. ‘We have five chickens, three pigs and one old rooster.’

Pronouns

Mwa, mo-minm é mo… é mô shyin ‘Me, myself and I… and my dog’

Pronouns are words we use to talk about things without having to mention the noun over and over again.

Subject: Mo... 'I...'

The subject is the one doing the action, the ‘I’ in ‘I eat rice’.

Li gònn! Mo pa konné éyou li yê. She’s gone! I don’t know where she is!
Y’apé vini astœr. They’re coming now.
No linm dansé, mé zòt linm pa ça. We like to dance, y’all don’t like that.

Object: ...mò/...mwa ‘...me’

The object is the one the action is done to, the ‘me’ in ‘They like me’.

Li dòn mò ça. He gave it to me.
Manj li! Eat it!
Ça va di twa to fou. They’ll tell you you’re crazy.

Another use for this form is to emphasize the subject of the sentence by adding it at the beginning or end. You’ll probably recognize the distinctive Louisiana flavor of these sentences in English, too:

Mwa, mo linm ça! Me, I like that!
To kanay, twa! You’re mischievous, you!
Li parl kréyòl byin, li. She speaks Creole well, her.

Possessive: mô ‘my’

Possessive pronouns show who something belongs to. When we write these pronouns, we use the circumflex (the little hat, ^).

mô liv my book
tô lavi your life
yê pirog their pirogue

Sometimes, you will also come across people using forms like mê, tê, sê (for plural nouns) and mâ, tâ, sâ (for feminine nouns). Whether or not you use these, your Creole will still sound just fine - and we note them here just to make you aware they exist.

Reflexive: mo-minm ‘myself’

If the subject and the object of a verb are the same, we need to use what’s called a reflexive pronoun. This is like English ‘herself’, ‘myself’, etc.

Li parl a li-minm. She talks to herself
Mo lav mo-minm apré travay. I wash myself after work.

Emphatic possessive: mô-chin/-kin/-chènn/-kènn ‘my own’, ‘mine’

Emphatic possessive pronouns emphasize whose thing we’re talking about, and are equivalent to saying something is ‘your own’ in English. You do this by adding -chin, -kin, -chènn or -kènn to the normal possessive pronoun.

M’apé parlé pou mô-chènn mézon. I’m talking about my own house.
Non, nô-chin gombo çé myé. No, our gumbo is better!
Ranj tô-kènn zafӕr-yé! Put your own stuff away!

They can also stand alone, like ‘hers’, ‘yours’ and ‘mine’ in English:

Çé sô-chènn. It’s hers.
Tô-kin çé pli gran ke mô-kin. Yours is bigger than mine.
Nô famiy çé gran, zô-chènn çé piti. Our family is big, y’all’s is small.

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