Note: This blog post was intended to be submitted July 27th.

As we head through the end of July, I am realizing several things about the reality of Pondicherry. 
I hoped to find a cool mix of the French language and Tamil or something, like the French and West African mix of Haitian Creole. A Pondicherrian creole? I knew that La Réunion, a French department just East of Africa, has a kind of Creole that has Tamil influence, and Mauritius in a similar location has its kind of creole. 

I did not find that.

Pondicherry, however, continues to carry the legacy of the French in India, but more so in a symbolic manner. Pondicherry never really got “Independence”, but more so, the French decided to end the colony there, and then India assumed it as its own.

Here, it seems that attitudes towards the French are otherwise indifferent. To be honest, the French language has been generally useless when I’m out and about. That being said, after English and Tamil, I hear French spoken the most here. (I should also mention that my Tamil is not good, and I don’t know any other Indian languages here). From meetings at Alliance Française de Pondichéry, the Lycée Français de Pondichéry, and the French Institute of Pondicherry to the beaches and touristy part of White Town Pondicherry is where I can capture francophones out and about. 

The reality of the languages here is generally separate, except in the Tamilophone spaces where anglicism is generally normal, but also by franco-Pondicherrians with French and Tamil*. The franco-Pondicherrians generally refer to your nationality – French, but with ethnic origins from here. So basically, a French OCI, who has Indian ancestry. Amongst themselves, it’s generally strictly French, or Tamil and maybe some French numbers when dealing with data.

They seem so few, but so close. That is one thing I remarked about the franco-Pondicherrians, especially those that are culturally French, which a lot of them are. With the history I have been learning, it was common to “return” to Pondicherry, for the sake of family and religion, as that is what is most important to people. I have requested interviews with a number of them, and the response is typically negative. I’m getting the impression that privacy in this subculture is placed at a high degree of importance, more so than people monolingual or bilingual Tamilians (bilingual in just English and Tamil).

I have had too many instances where the English that I use and the English here were unintelligible. Normally, it’s not a problem – I just focus on speaking simply – but it’s evident the kinds of education disparities there in the mastery of English, and then on top of that knowledge of French. I was in a jewelry shop recently, and I asked a question to the shop owner, and I think he understood? What happened was: that after I asked my question, he repeated back my question with an affirmative tone, but he mixed up the word order, and the words that I could recognize that I said were a bit jumbled.

I met with a lady from Lycée Français de Pondichéry, and one thing she pointed out to me was how English fluency was a sign of status here – indicative of being well-educated. I’m having a hard time understanding what the perception of French is. I tell people I’m from the West Indies (where Haiti is located), but that only declenches the game of cricket. In addition, I think generally the people I’ve met only understand the Western Hemisphere to be anglophone and hispanophone, and most people here don’t know what Haiti is, so there isn’t a “French” profile I give to people whom I’m not speaking French to. When I do speak French, people just assume I’m French, but I’m already a foreigner, so I don’t understand how they are understanding me.

I’m taking a C1.2 level class at the Alliance Française to remain connected with other French-language users. What I have found is a community of locals who want to develop their advanced French skills and their job prospects in the future. I am in a class of 6 students, and everyone else is a master’s student, which is cool. In class, the other students slip into Tamil and sometimes English when they finally comprehend an idea that was difficult to grasp in French. The teacher we have is from France, and she also has a strong competency in English. This illustrates how uncommon it is to be fluent in French here.

It’s typically normal for me to be with a French speaker and when interacting with other Indians to switch to English, as English serves as a lingua franca for a lot of India. 

The attitudes towards French in the Indian context might be that the language itself it honestly not useful. Without European citizenship, or having enough funds to support college, the language seems far removed from a realm of necessity.

• It wasn’t only Pondicherry that was a colony of France, but being in Pondicherry, and not the other former colonies (Mahé (embedded at the coast of Kerala), Yanam (embedded at the coast of Andhra Pradesh), and Karaikal (at the coast of Tamil Nadu as well)). I say franco-Pondicherrians, as that is what is most common here, but I have encountered Indian-origin people from other parts of India (Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, etc). For simplicity, I will continue using franco-Pondicherrian, and default to Tamil being their Indian background. There might be cases where that deviates, but if so, I will clarify.