French on the Island of Bourbon (Réunion)

Abstract

France first laid claim to the uninhabited Island of Bourbon in 1640 (the name was changed into La Réunion in 1848), but permanent settlement and colonisation did not start until 1665. The present study zooms in on the first 50 years of the French colony and examines the intricacies of who spoke which language to whom on the basis of sociodemographic data concerning colonial households in the société d’habitation (‘homestead society’). Interethnic marriages were frequent in the first years; many of the first French settlers had Malagasy spouses and servants, others married young women from India. Malagasy can be shown to have left an imprint on the variety of French spoken during the early years of the colony. It is assumed that the colonists and their slaves spoke varieties which can be classified as approximative French, sharing several features with other varieties of overseas French. These early approximative varieties of French became the basis from which Réunion Creole developed in the société de plantation (‘plantation society’) in the years after 1725.