Multilingualism

One thing that’s really impressed me during my stay here in Cayenne is the multilingualism of the residents. It’s one thing to know several languages, but it’s quite another to use several. Here, it seems that, beyond French —taught in schools and thus spoken by all non-immigrants— everyone seems to use a couple different languages in their daily lives. While for many, there is the home language — Guianese French Creole for the Creole (read: descended from slaves) population, Haitian Creole for Haitian immigrants, Mandarin for the large Chinese population, etc.— they also go beyond that to use the languages of other immigrant populations. For example, the other day I was in a photo shop making copies of my passport so I no longer had to carry it around, and the Vietnamese men working the counter spoke to me in French, to each other in Vietnamese, and to the Brazilian customer they served after me in Portuguese (not perfect, but better than mine). I haven’t seen many people speaking Southeast Asian languages who were not themselves from the area, but I did see one man speaking Chinese to the owner of the corner market. (The Chinese seemingly have the corner market market cornered.) I’ve never really been in a place with a population so broadly multilingual. Even in Paris, where dozens of languages are spoken, I never really noticed any everyday multilingualism beyond people talking to tourists. It’s nice.

However, I spend most of my time here with Spanish-speaking immigrants thanks to Jorge’s vast social network (and the fact that I know very few others here). I’ve noticed that if they don’t speak French, they find life a lot more difficult, even though they can survive and make a living speaking comfortably with other Spanish-speakers as well as Brazilians. Those that do speak French seem to not be as frustrated by life in Cayenne.