MORE ABOUT HAITI
More About Haiti - The Language
Creole and French in Haiti
Haitian Creole is the true national language of the Republic of Haiti.
In addition to eight million people in the homeland, it is spoken by about a
million Haitians living abroad. All Haitian speak the language, but a
small minority of about 10% speaks French, which they have learned at either
home or at school. However, even a Haitian who masters French consider
Haitian Creole, which they use for most everyday communication, as the symbol
of their national identity.
What is a creole language?
The people in Haiti call Haitian Creole "kreyol." The term Creole comes
from a Portuguese word meaning "raising in the home." It first referred to
Europeans born and raised in the overseas colonies. It was later used for
languages hat arose on the plantations that the Europeans established, where
cash crops (indigo, coffee, cotton, sugar) were reproduced using slaves imported
from Africa. Creole is the most widely spoken and most developed of a
large group of creole languages that are found today in all former French
plantation colonies, including Louisiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guyana,
and islands in the Indian Ocean. Nothing about their structure
differentiates them from other languages nor makes them inferior. The
grammar of Creole is just as complex or simple as that of English or French, for
example, and its vocabulary meets all the needs of its speakers.
How was Creole formed?
In a way, Creole resulted from African slaves' efforts to speak the French that
they heard when they arrived in the colony of Saint-Dominique.(now Haiti).
Slaves came from all over West Africa and spoke many different languages.
On any one plantation, several African languages were spoken. Also as that
time, most of the French people in Saint- Dominique spoke French dialects and
everyday
spoken
French. That type of French, called Popular French, differed a lot from
the French spoken by he ruling classes n France called Standard French.
The slaves, seldom able to communicate with fellow slaves in a common African
tongue, tried to learn Popular French. Slaves who arrived later,
especially field slaves who had little contact with French speakers, tried to
learn the approximate variety of Popular French the other slaves spoke rather
than Popular French itself. Over time, this appreciative form of French
became more and more different from the French varieties and came to be
recognized as a language in its own right. It is also interesting that the
whites picked it up and became the language used by all those born in the
colony.
More than 90% of the vocabulary of Creole is of French origin, yet French people can't understand Creole. This is because the grammars of the two languages are very different. Also, Creole has kept the original meaning of Popular French words whereas in France these words were replaced by words from stand French, and some Popular French words changed their meaning. A good example is the sentence Ki jan ou rele? "What is your name?" which corresponds to French "Comment vous appelez-vous?" Although a French person wouldn't understand that phrase, every word is of French origin.
The African Element of Creole
Most present-day Creole speakers are descendants of African slave, and some
people think that it is a language that mixes French vocabulary with grammar
from African languages. This seems reasonable since African traits have
survived in other areas of cultures: religion, folklore, and food. For
example, in the case of food, okra is called by its African name, gumbo. It is
used a lot in Haiti. There are indeed some grammatical elements that might
be traced to Africa. African languages served as a sort of filter between
forms slaves heard and those they reproduced. They would favor forms of
Popular French that resembled or worded like those of their native language.
The famous writer, Aime Cesaire said, "Creole is a language whose body is French
but whose soul is African."
The Future of Creole
Today in Haiti, Creole has been recognized as a co-official language with
French. It now has an official spelling. It is used more and more in
education and the media. Its recognition as full language and its expanded
use means that the majority of Haitian for whom it is the only language will be
able to better participate in the political and economic life of their country.
