“For these interviewees the alien nature of the equipment alone would have made it a truly weird experience for them,” said Mayeux.

  “Until now, scholars have had to rely on neat written transcriptions for historical studies of the Creole language. In these recordings we can finally hear a fuller range of variation in the language, and better understand how Creole would have developed over time.”

  Technical insights range from agglutination, with articles mashed into nouns, and determiners like ‘the’ coming after a noun. “Contemporary French speakers would simply not be able to comprehend this language,” said Mayeux.