LANGUAGE
The official language is English - but the most widely spread is French and the local dialect, Creole (patoi). Hey wanna learn some creole? :) click here!! Teaching is in English but written and spoken press is predominantly in French.
Apart from creole,french and english,
7 languages of oriental origin are spoken in Mauritius: Hindu,Urdu,Tamil,Telegu,Marathi,Gurijati
and Sanscritto,all from an Indian Source. Then you must add 2 languages of
chinese origin: cantonese and hakka. Apart from English and french, creole
is considered the language of the people with its French lexical base more
widely understod and used.
Creole has acted as a vehicle for mauritian
popular art above all in the theatre, for songs and in a lesser way for literature.
But is definitely in songs that creole comes out best, represented through
a large number of song writers; song writers using French and English are
far fewer. One of the exclusive dominions of creole songs is for the refrains
that accompany the dance of African origin called 'sega' . (If you have real
payer already installed on your pc, you have probably already listened to
a sega song :)
Click here
to download a sega song 'alalila' s
Click here to listen
to more sega songs!!
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you are listening to a sega song "Tikou, tikou" by Babale & S. Lynx
The above picture shows some sega dancers
© carine Attan ©
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