Books about Mauritius

Guidebooks

Mauritius, Réunion & the Seychelles. Lonely Planet Guide, 2003.(*Newton Kwan)
Mauritius, Réunion & Seychelles. Insight Guide, 2000.*
Mauritius, Rodrigues, Réunion. The Bradt Travel Guide. 5th Edition, 2002.*
This is Mauritius by Alan Proust & Alan Mountain. New Holland Publishers, 1995. [In UL: 969.82 P9]

Creole Phrasebooks

Mauritian Creole in Seven Easy Lessons, by Mark Frew. Port Louis: Ledikasyon Pu Travayer, 2003. [useful for basic grammar; uses the LPT phonetic orthography]*
Mauritius: Its Creole Language. The ultimate phrase book and dictionary, by Jacques K.Lee. London: Nautilus, 1999. [includes many word lists, including code numbers on p. 70, food terms on p. 82-97, Chinese words on p. 89-91]*
Parlez créole/Speak creole. Rose Hill, Mauritius: Editions de l'Océan Indien [In French and English; uses French spelling conventions] (*Nick Wong)
Le créole mauricien de poche. Assimil [in French; uses more phonemic spelling]*

Dictionaries

Diksyoner Kreol-Angle. 1984. Port Louis: Ledikasyon Pu Travayer [Creole-English dictionary using the LPT phonetic orthography]*
Robillard, Didier de. 1993. Contribution à un inventaire des particularités lexicales du francais de l'Ile Maurice. [glossary of local words used in Mauritian French; includes etymologies for many creole terms]*
Sewtohul, K.Goswami. English-Creole Dictionary, 1997. [uses 'conventional English spelling']*

Multimedia resources

Virahsawmy, Dev. Aprann Lir ek Ekrir Morisien. ['Learn to read and wirte Mauritian': CD-ROM including rules for spelling and grammar, poems with audio files, and the script for his play Li]*
Antoine ek Lelette: [comic film in creole, DVD courtesy of Steeve Tsang Mang Kin]*
Séga a l'Ile Maurice. [The Séga in Mauritius: CD-ROM in French covering history, instruments etc; includes some video clips in creole]*
Les Ségatiers de l'Ile Maurice [The séga singers of Mauritius: traditional séga songs recorded in the 1970s]. Playasound  - PS 65126
Makalapo by Sandra Mayotte [new CD of séga songs, including lyrics for two songs]*

Books on Creole

Adone, Dany. 1994. The Acquisition of Mauritian Creole. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [based on the author's PhD thesis on children's acquisition of creole as a first language]*
Baker, Philip. 1972. Kreol: A Description of Mauritian Creole. London: C.Hurst & Company. [a reference grammar which introduced a practical orthography; available at Chung Chi library, CUHK]
Baker, Philip & Chris Corne. 1982. Isle de France Creole. [combines history with grammatical analysis; available at Chung Chi library, CUHK]
Chaudenson, Robert. 2001. Creolization of Language and Culture. London: Routledge. [translation of French book Des iles, des hommes, des langues; revised in collaboration with Salikoko Mufwene]*
Corne, Chris. 1999. From French to Creole: the development of new vernaculars in the French colonial world. University of Westminster Press.*

Articles on creole

(a) academic papers:

Baker, Philip. 2003. Reduplication in Mauritian Creole. In Kouwenberg, S (ed), Twice as Meaningful: Reduplication in Pidgins, Creoles and other contact languages. London: Battlebridge. Pp. 211-218.*
Carden, Guy. 1993. The Mauritian Creole lekor reflexive: Substrate Influence and the Target-Location Parameter. In F. Byrne & J.Holm (eds), Atlantic meets Pacific: A Global view of pidginization and creolization. Pp. 105-117.*
Corne, Chris et al. 1996. Clause reduction in asyndetic coordination in Isle de France Creole: the 'serial verbs' problem. In Baker, P. & A. Syea (eds), Changing Meanings, Changing Functions: papers relating to grammaticalization in contact languages. London: University of Westminster Press. Pp.129-154.*
Hookoomsing, Vinesh Y. 1993. So near, yet so far: Bannzil's pan-creole idealism. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 102, pp. 27-38.*
Syea, Anand. 1993. Null subject in Mauritian Creole and the Pro-Drop Parameter. In F. Byrne & J.Holm (eds), Atlantic meets Pacific: A Global view of pidginization and creolization. Pp. 91-102.*
Syea, Anand. 1996, The development of a marker of definiteness in Mauritian creole. In Baker, P. & A. Syea (eds), Changing Meanings, Changing Functions: papers relating to grammaticalization in contact languages. London: University of Westminster Press. Pp.171-186.*

(b) Short papers from the 2001 Colloquium on Mauritian Kreol:

Bickerton, Derek: On Creole Languages & their Contribution to Language Theory.
Frew, Mark: The Influence of Chinese on Mauritian Creole.
Lallah, Rajsomer: Kreol and the Administration of Justice.
(also many other papers written in kreol)

Creole Literature

Collen, Lindsey. 2000. Natir Imin (Human Nature: human language, freedom, work, and our moral and political sense). Port Louis: Ledikasyon Pu Travayer. [a public lecture in Mauritian and English versions, given at the University of Mauritius, citing Chomsky and Bickerton]*
Khal, 1995. Kot Sa Parol la? [poems in parallel creole and French versions, by a Mauritian living in Lyon, France. Followed by 'Reflections on creole' in French, in which he discusses the experience of writing in creole]*
Louise, Jocelyn. 2001. So bann poem (her poems)  [poems in creole]*
Virahsawmy, Dev. 1982. Li, translated by Ramesh Ramdoyal as The Prisoner of Conscience . [play in Creole and English versions]*
Virahsawmy, Dev. 1996. Galileo Gonaz. Port Louis: Ledikasyon Pu Travayer. [play in creole]*
Virahsawmy, Dev. 1998. Sir Toby. Port Louis: Ledikasyon Pu Travayer. [play in creole]*
Ramdoyal, Ramesh.1985. La Mare Mo Mémoire. [poems in creole, with preface in French by Vinesh Hookoomsing]*

History and culture

Berthelot, Lilian. 2000.  Mahébourg, ville virtuelle. Rose Hill, Mauritius: Editions de l'Océan indien [history of the city of Mahebourg, in French]*
Jacques K.Lee. 1990. Sega: The Mauritian Folk Dance. London: Nautilus.(*Ripple Chan)
Saint Pierre, Bernardin de. 1773. Journey to Mauritius [an account of the wildlife and society of Mauritius in the 18th century]*

Ecology

Correia, Clara Pinto. 2003  Return of the crazy bird: the sad, strange tale of the dodo. New York: Copernicus Books. [UL: 598.65 C824 r]
Durrell, Gerald.  Golden Bats and Pink Pigeons.
Quammen, David. 1996. The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of  Extinctions.*
Sinclair, Ian & Olivier Langrand. 1998. Birds of the Indian Ocean Islands. Cape Town: New Holland.*
Staub, France. 1993. Fauna of Mauritius and associated flora. Mauritius:  Precigraph Limited. [UL: 591.096982 S79]

Literature

Descroizilles, Marie & Alix Mulnier. 1999. Bor'endan Bor'dehor. Rose Hill, Mauritius: Editions de l'Océan indien [novel in French about the experience of the Ilois of the Chagos archipelago; includes many creole expressions in italics]*
Le Clézio, Jean-Marie. 1986. Voyage à Rodrigues. [an account of the novelist's journey to the island of Rodrigues, in French]*
Littérature Mauricienne, 1993 [contains articles in French on language and literature in Mauritius]*
Prosper, Jean-Georges. 1994. Histoire de la Littérature Mauricienne de Langue Francaise. Rose Hill, Mauritius: Editions de l'Océan indien  [history of 'French' literature of Mauritius, including several extracts in creole]*
Prosper, Jean-Georges. 1996. La Créolie Indian-océaniste: Littératures francophones de la Région de l'Océan Indien. Vacoas: Editions Le Printemps. [discussion in French and creole of the literature of the Indian Ocean islands]*
Saint Pierre, Bernardin de: Paul et Virginie* (the classic novel in French), Paul and Virginie* (English translation of the novel)
O'Brian, Patrick The Mauritius Command*  [The 4th novel in the Master and Commander series, set during the Napoleonic Wars]

    * These items can be borrowed from Dr. Matthews.