Haitian Creole

thumb|Ambassador Hervé Denis discusses the vital relationship between Haiti and its diaspora in Haitian Creole.

Haitian Creole (, ), or simply Creole (), is a French-based creole language with a Romance foundation and significant Atlantic-Congo structural influences. It is spoken by over 13million people worldwide, primarily Haitian citizens and the global diaspora. It is one of the two official languages of Haiti (the other being French), where it is the native language of the vast majority of the population. It is also the most widely spoken creole language in the world.

The three main dialects of Haitian Creole are the Northern, Central, and Southern dialects; the Northern dialect is predominantly spoken in Cap-Haïtien, the Central in Port-au-Prince, and the Southern in the Cayes area.

The language emerged from contact between French settlers and enslaved Africans during the Atlantic slave trade in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) in the 17th and 18th centuries. Although its vocabulary largely derives from 18th-century French, its grammar is that of a West African Volta–Congo language branch, particularly the Fongbe and Igbo languages. It is not mutually intelligible with standard French, and it also has its own distinctive grammar. Some estimate that Haitians are the largest community in the world to speak a modern creole language; others estimate that more people speak Nigerian Pidgin.

Haitian Creole's use in communities and schools has been contentious since at least the 19thcentury. Some Haitians view French as inextricably linked to the legacy of colonialism and language compelled on the population by conquerors, while Creole has been maligned by Francophones as a miseducated person's French. Until the late 20thcentury, Haitian presidents spoke only standard French to their fellow citizens, and until the 21st century, all instruction at Haitian elementary schools was in modern standard French, a second language to most of their students. It is related to Antillean Creole, spoken in the Lesser Antilles, and to other French-based creole languages.

Etymology

The word creole comes from the Portuguese term , which means "a person raised in one's house" and from the Latin , which means "to create, make, bring forth, produce, beget". In the New World, the term originally referred to Europeans born and raised in overseas colonies (as opposed to the European-born peninsulares). To be "as rich as a Creole" at one time was a popular saying boasted in Paris during the colonial years of Haiti (then named Saint-Domingue), for being the most lucrative colony in the world. The noun Creole, soon began to refer to the language spoken there as well, as it still is today. There are many theories on the formation of the Haitian Creole language.

One theory estimates that Haitian Creole developed between 1680 and 1740. During the 17th century, French and Spanish colonizers produced tobacco, cotton, and sugar cane on the island. The economy shifted more decisively into sugar production about 1690, just before the French colony of was officially recognized in 1697. Slaves lacked a common means of communication and as a result would try to learn French to communicate with one another, though most were denied a formal education. With the constant trafficking and enslavement of Africans, the language became increasingly distinct from French. The language was also picked up by other members of the community and became used by the majority of those born in what is now Haiti.

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thumb|right|upright=0.7|The flag of the [[Empire of Haiti (1804-1806)|Empire of Haiti (1804–1806)]]

right|thumb|upright=0.8|A Haitian planter

Differences between Haitian Creole and French

Haitian Creole and French have similar pronunciations and also share many lexical items. However, many cognate terms actually have different meanings. For example, as Valdman mentions in Haitian Creole: Structure, Variation, Status, Origin, the word for "frequent" in French is ; however, its cognate in Haitian Creole means 'insolent, rude, and impertinent' and usually refers to people. In addition, the grammars of Haitian Creole and French are very different. For example, in Haitian Creole, verbs are not conjugated as they are in French.

The Fon language, also known as the Fongbe language, is a modern Gbe language native to Benin, Nigeria and Togo in West Africa. This language has a grammatical structure similar to Haitian Creole, possibly making Creole a relexification of Fon with vocabulary from French. The two languages are often compared:

{| class="wikitable"

! French

! Fon

! Haitian Creole

! English

| the house

Taíno influence

There are a number of Taíno influences in Haitian Creole; many objects, fruit and animal names are either haitianized or have a similar pronunciation. Many towns, places or sites have their official name being a translation of the Taíno word.

{| class="wikitable"

!Taíno

!Haitian Creole

!Meaning

|Amani

|Amani-y

|The nickname of the town of Saint-Marc and famous beach

|Ayiti, Ayti

|Ayiti, Haiti

|The name of the country and the island. It means "Land of Great Mountains"

|Barbacoa

|Babekyou

|Barbecue

|Bajacu

|Bayakou

|The northern star, dawn, a Vodoun Loa associated with the star

|Batey

|Batèy

|Batey, a settlement around a sugar mill

|Caiman

|Kayiman

|Alligator

|Caimito

|Kayimit

|Star apple

|Canari

|Kannari

|A clay pot to keep water cool

|Canoa

|Kannòt

|Canoe

|Casabe

|Kasav

|Cassava

|Casique

|Kasik

|Cacique, an indigenous chief

|Cayo

|Okay, or Les Cayes

|A commune and seaport in the Sud département of Haiti

|Gonaibo

|Gonayiv, or Gonaïves

|The biggest city and capital of Artibonite

|Guanabo

|Gonav, Gonâve or Lagonav

|The biggest satellite island of Hispaniola and last refuge of the Taíno

|Guayaba

|Gwayav

|Guava

|Hamaca

|Amaka

|Hammock

|Jatibonico

|Latibonit, or Artibonite

|The longest river of Hispaniola and the biggest and most populous département of Haiti. In Taíno the word means "sacred water".

|Lambi

|Lanbi

|Conch

|Mabi

|A bitter drink known in the West Indies as Mauby

|Maboya

|Mabouya

|Iguana

|Mahis

|Mayi

|Maize

|Mamey

|Mamey, or Abriko

|The nickname of the town of Abricots

|Manati

|Lamanten

|Manatee

|Mani

|Manba

|Peanut butter

|Sabana

|Savann

|Savanna

|Tiburon

|Tibiwon

|The same word means "Tiburon", a coastal town in the South Peninsula (also called Tiburon Peninsula) and a river near the town. Also means Shark.

|Yaguana

|Leyogàn, Léogane

|A coastal town south of Port-au-Prince and capital of the cacicat of Xaragua

|Yucahu

|Loko, or Louquo

|The patron of healers and plants, a Vodoun Loa related to Yucahu, the supreme deity of the Taíno

History

Early development

Haitian Creole developed in the 17th and 18th centuries in the colony of Saint-Domingue, in a setting that mixed speakers of various Niger–Congo languages with French colonists. In the early 1940s under President , attempts were made to standardize the language. American linguistic expert Frank Laubach and Irish Methodist missionary H. Ormonde McConnell developed a standardized Haitian Creole orthography. Although some regarded the orthography highly, it was generally not well received. Its orthography was standardized in 1979. That same year Haitian Creole was elevated in status by the Act of 18 September 1979. The established an official orthography for Creole, and slight modifications were made over the next two decades. For example, the is no longer used, nor is the apostrophe. It classified French as the or "language of instruction", and Creole was classified as an or a "tool of education". The Constitution of 1987 names both Haitian Creole and French as the official languages, but recognizes Haitian Creole as the only language that all Haitians hold in common. French is spoken by only a small percentage of citizens. On 28 October 2004, the Haitian daily first published an entire edition in Haitian Creole in observance of the country's newly instated "Creole Day". Haitian Creole writers often use different literary strategies throughout their works, such as code-switching, to increase the audience's knowledge on the language.

There is a large population in Haiti that speaks only Haitian Creole, whether under formal or informal conditions:

Use in educational system

In most schools, French is still the preferred language for teaching. Generally speaking, Creole is more used in public schools, as that is where most children of ordinary families who speak Creole attend school.

Historically, the education system has been French-dominant. Except the children of elites, many had to drop out of school because learning French was very challenging to them and they had a hard time to follow up. The Bernard Reform of 1978 tried to introduce Creole as the teaching language in the first four years of primary school; however, the reform overall was not very successful. The use of Creole has grown; after the earthquake in 2010, basic education became free and more accessible to the monolingual masses. In the 2010s, the government has attempted to expand the use of Creole and improve the school system.

Orthography

Haitian Creole has a phonemic orthography with highly regular spelling, except for proper nouns and foreign words. According to the official standardized orthography, Haitian Creole is composed of the following 32 symbols: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and . The letters and are always associated with another letter (in the multigraphs , , , and ). The Haitian Creole alphabet has no or ; when is used in loanwords and proper nouns, it represents the sounds , , or . Common words such as ("person") and ("car") end with consonantal , while very few words, mostly adopted from African languages, contain nasalized high vowels, as in .

The diphthong is extremely rare, and maybe only exists in the common word uit (← French huit) "eight". Most other instances of this diphthong have been replaced by , e.g. fwi (← fruit) "fruit", nwit (← nuit) "night".

Haitian orthography debate

The first technical orthography for Haitian Creole was developed in 1940 by H. Ormonde McConnell and Primrose McConnell, Irish Methodist missionaries. It was later revised with the help of Frank Laubach, resulting in the creation of what is known as the McConnell–Laubach orthography.

The McConnell–Laubach orthography received substantial criticism from members of the Haitian elite. Haitian scholar Charles Pressoir critiqued the McConnell–Laubach orthography for its lack of codified front rounded vowels, which are typically used only by francophone elites.

French-based orthography

When Haiti was still a colony of France, edicts by the French government were often written in a French-lexicon creole and read aloud to the slave population.

Before Haitian Creole orthography was standardized in the late 20th century, spelling varied, but was based on subjecting spoken HaitianCreole to written French, a language whose spelling has a complicated relation to pronunciation. Unlike the phonetic orthography, French orthography of HaitianCreole is not standardized and varies according to the writer; some use exact French spelling, others adjust the spelling of certain words to represent pronunciation of the cognate in HaitianCreole, removing the silent letters. For example:<br /> ( "He goes to work in the morning") could be transcribed as:

,
, or
.

Grammar

Haitian Creole grammar is highly analytical: for example, verbs are not inflected for tense or person, and there is no grammatical gender, which means that adjectives and articles are not inflected according to the noun. The primary word order is subject–verb–object as it is in French and English.

Many grammatical features, particularly the pluralization of nouns and indication of possession, are indicated by appending certain markers, like , to the main word. There has been a debate going on for some years as to whether these markers are affixes or clitics, and if punctuation such as the hyphen should be used to connect them to the word. There is no difference between direct and indirect objects.

{| class="wikitable"

! colspan="2" scope="col" | Haitian Creole

! rowspan="2" scope="col" | Fon

| rowspan="5" |

| rowspan="2" | I

| rowspan="3" | me

| rowspan="4" |

| rowspan="4" | you (singular), thou (archaic)

| rowspan="6" |

| rowspan="6" | ,

| she, her

| him, it

| her, it

| him, her, it

| rowspan="2" |

| we, us

| you (plural)

| rowspan="5" |