MTA-Creole Kreyol-MTA

311 vwazwen ou ki fè twòp bwi.

The MTA has been posting public service announcements for the city's 311 information line in various 'foreign' languages heard in New York. (I took a photograph of the Arabic-language version.) On the way home tonight I caught up with the Creole version.

Creole has always been frustrating for me. After years and years of French instruction and on-the-job refreshers, I can't quite master this close-but-no-cigar derivative. Totally anecdotally I have figured out some of the grammar and recognized a word or two.

Tonight I decided to give it another go. It helped that I'd seen the English-language version already. Some of the phrases were pretty easy, such as those for learning how to learn English or to license your dog. But the one above on first glance gave up nothing about its meaning. Strangely it was the unfamiliar first word that began to open the door. Sounding it out I made the connection between vwazwen and voisin, "neighbor".

I had seen ou before, and it struck me as a personal adjective even in the postposition. (What had confused me was that both ou and où have French meanings that make no sense in this context.) Here ou was akin to the French tu or as an adjective, ton.

So: "your neighbor." I think I know where this is going.

ki fè.Ah, of course: qui fait, "who makes": "Your neighbor who makes ...."

That leaves only the mysterious twòp bwi. Getting the hang of this, it was a short step from bwi to bruit, "noise". That leaves only twòp, which was certainly both in context and phonetically trop, "too much".

311 your noisy neighbor.