Meaning of ché in several French or Martiniquan Creole phrases in Wide Sargasso Sea

Question

The first part of Jean Rhys' novel Wide Sargasso Sea is set in Jamaica, but the main character's mother is from Martinique, where French and the French-based Martiniquan Creole are spoken. The family's parrot can speak a few words that are based either on French or Martiniquan Creole.

For example, on page 25 of the Norton Critical Edition of the novel:

Our parrot was called Coco, a green parrot. He didn't talk very well, he could say Qui est là? Qui est là? and answer himself Ché Coco, Ché Coco.

Judith L. Raiskin, who edited the Norton Critical Edition, explains Coco's words as "Who's there?" and "Dear Coco." The first translation is fine, but the second does not appear to make sense. It assumes that "ché" is a mispronunciation of "cher/chère", turning the French è into é and dropping the guttural R. However, the normal answer to, "Who's there?" would be, "It's Coco" (since the parrot answers himself) or, in French, "C'est Coco". "Ché Coco" can be interpreted as a mispronunciation (or perhaps an eggcorn) of "C'est Coco", which sounds more plausible than Judith Raiskin's explanation.

In part two, Prof. Raiskin annotates another phrase in (presumably) Martiniquan Creole:

"Doudou, ché cocotte," the elderly woman said to Antoinette.

(The elderly woman is Christophine, who used to be Antoinette's nurse. The word "doudou" is also used in Nalo Hopkinson's novel Midnight Robber, which uses many elements from Caribbean culture.) According to Prof. Raiskin, the phrase is

An endearment, "darling little ducky".

Wiktionary tells us that doudou comes from a duplication of the French word "doux" (literally "soft"), so the first part of the translation is fine. However, since the phrase is a greeting, it would make more sense to translate the second part as "it's cocotte" instead of "little ducky" (assuming that "cocotte" refers to the elderly woman and isn't used in its current meaning).

However, much later (page 90 in the Norton Critical Edition), Christophine uses the phrase "doudou ché", which Judith Raiskin translates as "darling dear". Based on word order, the translation "it's doudou" does not appear to make sense.

My question therefore is what "ché" in the above examples means. Does it always mean the same thing? If it comes from "c'est", how it is possible to make sense of the last example? (Does Martiniquan Creole use a different word order than French?) If it comes from "cher/chère", how does that make sense in the first two examples?

Answer 1

Confiant has the following entries under ‘chè’ (and nothing under ‘che’ or ‘ché’):

chè ¹ cher, coûteux

chè ² cher(e), chéri(e), mon (ma) cher(e)

_{Raphaël Confiant (2007). Dictionnaire du créole martiniquais. Ibis Rouge.}

Confiant gives ‘sé’ as the Martiniquian for ‘c’est’, which casts doubt on the theory in the post that ‘ché’ might mean ‘c’est’.

As pointed out by Peter Shor in comments, there does not seem to be any difficulty in the parrot saying ‘Ché Coco’. Parrot repeat sounds made by humans in their vicinity, and ‘who’s there? dear Coco’ is plausibly something an owner might say to their parrot.

As for ‘Doudou ché cocotte’, Confiant gives:

doudou ¹ chéri(e); amoureux(se)

kòkot ² cocotte, chérie

so this phrase is a triplicate endearment as glossed by Judith Raiskin.

The creole spoken in Martinique belongs to the Antillean Creole family. Accordingly, I also looked at dictionaries of other members of the family:

chè 1 cher, coûteux; mon cher, ma chère

chè 2 viande ou poisson

_{Henry Tourneux and Maurice Barbotin (2008). Dictionnaire pratique du créole de Guadeloupe, p. 80. Karthala.}

che, 1. n., pulpit, tribune

che, 2. n., choir

che, 3. a., dear, beloved; precious; costly, expensive

_{Jones E. Mondesir (1992). Dictionary of St. Lucian Creole, p. 40. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.}

(The French origins must be ‘chair’, flesh; ‘chaire’, pulpit; ‘chœur’, choir.)