Les mots du COVID: en créole martiniquais et créole guadeloupéen par Raphaël Confiant et Hector Poullet

Abstract

The first entry is quite familiar in the COVID-19 era—the French term "Antivax," which comes out in Creole as "Moun ki kont vaksen ora-kou" (15). Many of the terms are similarly recognizable at a global scale and even across many languages, from comorbidité ("malady-batjé") to déconfinement ("dézankazaj") to pandémie ("maladi-tout-wonlatè") to quarantaine ("karantjou-fèmen"). In all, the forty-five terms that the authors present in Creole, with examples in both Creole and French translation, contribute to their effort to enrich their Creole languages, their intent "d'apporter [End Page 169] notre pierre aux efforts d'enrichissement lexical de nos créoles sans lesquels ces derniers n'ont pas d'avenir" (11).