The article deals with the disciplinary, linguistic and historical differences leading to the various uses of the concept "creole", as reflected in the words "creole", "creolization" and "créolité". Moving from anthropological critiques highlighting the limits inherent in the concept itself, the author reviews three main contributions on the topic, underlining several linguistic and terminological "slippages" that lead her to redefine the debate over the concept as a process of ongoing translation. Thus, special attention is paid to the discursive life of the term and its linguistic and conceptual translations.