To or Ou? The Familiar and Respectful Second Person in Mauritian Creole
Mauritian Creole has two words for "you" in the singular: to, familiar, and ou, respectful. The distinction works much as tu and vous do in French, or du and Sie in German.
What is interesting about it is that it should not really be there. Most modern French creoles have lost this distinction, and its survival in Mauritian has a plausible explanation that has nothing to do with French.
The forms
The second person sits inside a wider paradigm, and it is easier to see the point in context.
| Person | Dependent | Independent |
|---|---|---|
| 1 singular | mo | mwa |
| 2 singular, familiar | to | twa |
| 2 singular, respectful | ou | ou |
| 3 singular | li | li |
| 1 plural | nou | nou |
| 2 plural | zot | zot |
| 3 plural | zot | zot |
Three things to take from the table.
There is no separate plural politeness form. French uses vous for both the polite singular and the plural. Mauritian does not: the plural is zot regardless of politeness, and ou is singular only.
zot covers second and third person plural alike, so it means both "you" plural and "they". This is a genuine ambiguity resolved by context.
The same forms serve as possessives. to and ou are also "your", so ou prosedir is "your procedures". The commonest possessive pattern places so between possessor and possessed, as in Sesil so lisien, "Cécile's dog", with zot in place of so when the possessor is plural. Watch this one: using zot where ou belongs turns "your procedures" into "their procedures".
Why the distinction survived
Baker and Kriegel note that a familiar and respectful contrast in the second person singular is found in early data for almost all French creoles, but is absent from the majority of modern varieties. Mauritian kept it.
Their suggestion for why is worth knowing: the survival "may in part be due to influence from Bhojpuri and other Indic languages which have a familiar versus respectful contrast". Given that around 365,000 indentured labourers arrived from India in the thirty-five years after 1835, a French distinction being propped up by an Indic one is entirely plausible, and it is a nice example of substrate influence maintaining an inherited feature rather than removing one.
Worth adding a caveat. That observation is comparative, about French creoles as a group, and the descriptive literature does not settle how fully alive the distinction is in Mauritian usage today. Detailed, current usage norms for to and ou are not well documented in the sources available to me, so the practical guidance below is offered as guidance rather than as a sourced finding.
The third option: leaving it out
This is the most useful thing on the page, and it is easy to miss.
Subject pronouns can simply be omitted. And Baker and Kriegel record that omission of the second person singular pronoun "can often be interpreted as reflecting the speaker's uncertainty as to whether familiar to or respectful ou is more appropriate".
So when a speaker cannot tell which is right, there is a documented way out: say neither. A learner worrying about giving offence has a third choice, and it is the one speakers themselves use in exactly that situation.
In practice
to goes with close friends, family, children, and people of the same age or standing.
| Kreol Morisien | English |
|---|---|
| Ki to pe fer zordi? | What are you doing today? |
| To bizin kiksoz? | Do you need anything? |
| To finn fini sa travay-la? | Have you finished that task? |
ou goes with elders, strangers, and anyone in a position of authority or a formal setting.
| Kreol Morisien | English |
|---|---|
| Ou bien? | Are you well? |
| Eski ou kapav ed mwa? | Could you help me? |
Two points of grammar in those examples that are easy to get wrong, and that have nothing to do with politeness.
The question word goes to the front. Ki to pe fer zordi? and not a version with ki left in place after the verb. Mauritian fronts its question words, where French allows both patterns, so French speakers reliably transfer the wrong one. There is more on the syntax page.
Do not add pe to a state. Ou bien? asks whether someone is well. Adding the progressive marker changes the meaning, because pe on a stative or adjectival predicate is inchoative: it would ask whether they are becoming well, which presupposes they were ill.
If you are unsure
Start with ou and let the other person's usage tell you whether to switch. Or, following the documented strategy above, leave the pronoun out until you know. Using to where ou is expected reads as overfamiliar in a way that the reverse does not: using ou where to would do is merely a little formal, while the other direction can give offence.
Where to go next
- The syntax of Mauritian Creole, including the full pronoun system and the question-fronting rule
- The alphabet and spelling system
- The history and formation of Mauritian Creole, including the indenture figures behind the Indic explanation
- All the Morisien guides
Sources
- Philip Baker and Sibylle Kriegel, "Mauritian Creole", Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures Online, survey 55. The source for the paradigm, for the loss of the distinction in other French creoles, for the Indic explanation, and for the pronoun-omission strategy. Free to read.
- Peter Stein, Connaissance et emploi des langues à l'Île Maurice, Hamburg: Helmut Buske, 1982. A large sociolinguistic survey of language use in Mauritius.
- Philip Baker, Kreol: A Description of Mauritian Creole, London: C. Hurst and Co., 1972.
- Lortograf Kreol Morisien, Akademi Kreol Morisien, Ministry of Education, 2011. Free PDF.
Rebuilt September 2026. The practical guidance above is guidance, not a sourced finding: current usage norms for the two forms are not well documented in the published literature.