The Assistant's Creole

When you live in France, but you still spend a fair amount of time among English speakers, strange things can happen to your language. I was Skype-calling my dad yesterday, and I told him that I pay a fixed rate of 100 euros for electricity, but that the figure would be regularised at the end of the year. Dad knew what I was talking about, but was still undoubtedly wondering why I didn't throw in a nice phrasal like "balanced out" or "evened out" or something. The reason I didn't is because it didn't occur to me. It had been explained to me in French, and so I explained it to dad in the Assistant's Creole.

Language Assistants will know what I'm talking about, because we all notice it/talk about it/revel in it. There are a variety of reasons that language assistants find themselves substituting French words for English ones, and one of them is simple economy of syllables. When you have two languages (more or less) at your disposal, and you are lazy, you can code-switch freely to save yourself the strain of using, say, six syllables when you could use four, or even three. For example:

English: Do you like that idea?
French: Est-ce que ca te dit?
Assistant's Creole: Does that te dit? Or, "That tell you?"
(Mitch)

Sometimes you might just like the sound of a word. You might, for example, find "bouger" to be more pleasant than "to move" or "to head out", thus:

"You guys wanna bouge?"
(Mara)

Sometimes the use of the Assistant's Creole reflects cultural differences between one's country d'origine and one's adopted country. It was not uncommon, among American assistants, to have never traveled by train before arriving in France. Thus, the word "train station" is not part of our functional vocabulary. So, while a British assistant might suggest we head on down to the "train station", an American Assistant would - I think without exception - suggest we go to the "gare". Another example is the creole for "bakery". I, for one, did not frequent bakeries before my time in France. Thus, I do not refer to them as bakeries, but rather "boulangeries" or "the 'ol boulanger".

The Assistant's Creole is often wielded to humorous ends as well. Much comedic hay is made of the fact that the French word for bread is "pain". Thus, when you see a boulanger called "Maison du Pain", you can selectively translate the title of the establishment, yielding "House of Pain." Another favorite is the literal translation for the French expression "Tiens-moi au courant," which means something like "Keep me posted" or "Keep me up-to-date." To stay up-to-date in the Assistant's Creole, one would use the more literal "Hold me to the current", which sounds more appropriate for a situation with a car battery and an agreed-upon safe-word than for making plans.

As a final example of the Assistant's Creole in action, I offer this real-life example that came up even as I typed this essay:

Laura - ...okay, we'll probably take one of the direct trains.
Jon - Sounds good.
Laura - Alright, well see you soon. And if you pass by a boulanger... bring the pain.
Jon - Done.

Fin