Haitian Creole

Haitian Creole(/ˈheɪʃənˈkriːoʊl/; Haitian Creole:kreyòl ayisyen,[kɣejɔlajisjɛ̃];French:créole haïtien,[kʁe.ɔla.i.sjɛ̃]), or simplyCreole(Haitian Creole:kreyòl), is aFrench-based creole languagespoken by 10 to 12million people worldwide, and is one of the two official languages ofHaiti(the other being French), where it is the native language of the vast majority of the population, and is also the most widely spoken creole language in the world.Northern, Central, and Southern dialects are the three main dialects of Haitian Creole. The Northern dialect is predominantly spoken inCap-Haïtien, Central is spoken inPort-au-Prince, and Southern in theCayesarea.
The language emerged from contact between French settlers and enslaved Africans during theAtlantic slave tradein the French colony ofSaint-Domingue(nowHaiti) in the 17th and 18th centuries.Although its vocabulary largely derives from 18th-century French, its grammar is that of a West AfricanVolta-Congolanguage branch, particularly theFongbeandIgbolanguages.It also has influences from Spanish, English, Portuguese, Taíno, and other West African 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 moderncreole language,others estimate that more people speakNigerian 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 onlystandard Frenchto 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.
Haitian Creole is also spoken in regions that have received migration from Haiti, including other Caribbean islands,French Guiana,Martinique,France,Canada(particularlyQuebec) and theUnited States(including the U.S. state ofLouisiana).It is related toAntillean Creole, spoken in theLesser Antilles, and to other French-based creole languages.
The wordcreolecomes from thePortuguesetermcrioulo, which means "a person raised in one's house" and from theLatincreare, which means "to create, make, bring forth, produce, beget".In theNew World, the term originally referred toEuropeans born and raised in overseas colonies(as opposed to the European-bornpeninsulares). To be "as rich as a Creole" at one time was a popular saying boasted inParisduring the colonial years of Haiti (then namedSaint-Domingue), for being the most lucrative colony in the world.The nounCreole, soon began to refer to the language spoken there as well, as it still is today.
Haitian Creole contains elements from both theRomancegroup ofIndo-European languagesthrough itssuperstrate,French, as well as influences fromAfrican languages.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 producedtobacco,cotton, andsugar caneon the island.Throughout this period, the population was made of roughly equal numbers ofengagés(white workers),gens de couleur libres(free people of colour) and slaves.The economy shifted more decisively into sugar production about 1690, just before the French colony ofSaint-Dominguewas officially recognized in 1697.The sugar crops needed a much larger labor force, which led to an increase in slave trafficking . In the 18th century an estimated 800,000 West Africans were enslaved and brought to Saint-Domingue.As the slave population increased, the proportion of French-speaking colonists decreased.
Many African slaves in the colony had come fromNiger-Congo-speaking territory, and particularly speakers ofKwa languages, such asGbefrom West Africa and theCentral Tano languages, andBantu languagesfrom Central Africa.Singler suggests that the number of Bantu speakers decreased while the number of Kwa speakers increased, with Gbe being the most dominant group. The first fifty years ofSaint‑Domingue's sugar boom coincided with emergent Gbe predominance in theFrench Caribbean. In the interval during which Singler hypothesizes the language evolved, the Gbe population was around 50% of the kidnapped enslaved population.
Classical French(françaisclassique) andlangues d'oïl(Norman,PoitevinandSaintongeaisdialects,GalloandPicard) were spoken during the 17th and 18th centuries inSaint‑Domingue, as well as inNew FranceandFrench West Africa.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.
InSaint-Domingue, people of all classes spokeCreole French. There were both lower and higher registers of the language, depending on education and class. Creole served as alingua francathroughout theWest Indies.
Haitian Creole and French have similar pronunciations and also share many lexical items.However, manycognateterms actually have different meanings. For example, as Valdman mentions inHaitian Creole: Structure, Variation, Status, Origin, the word for "frequent" in French isfréquent; however, its cognate in Haitian Creolefrekanmeans '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.Additionally, Haitian Creole possesses different phonetics from standard French; however, it is similar in phonetic structure.The phrase-structure is another similarity between Haitian Creole and French but differs slightly in that it contains details from its African substratum language.
Both Haitian Creole and French have also experiencedsemantic change: words that had a single meaning in the17th centuryhave changed or have been replaced in both languages.For example, "Ki jan ou rele?" ("What is your name?") corresponds to the French "Comment vous appelez‑vous ?". Although the average French speaker would not understand this phrase, every word in it is in fact of French origin:qui"who";genre"manner";vous"you", andhéler"to call", but the verbhélerhas been replaced byappelerin modern French and reduced to a meaning of "to flag down".
Lefebvre proposed the theory ofrelexification, arguing that the process of relexification (the replacement of the phonological representation of a substratum lexical item with thephonologicalrepresentation of a superstratum lexical item, so that the Haitian creole lexical item looks like French, but works like the substratum language(s)) was central in the development of Haitian Creole.
TheFon language, also known as the Fongbe language, is a modernGbe languagenative toBenin,NigeriaandTogoinWest Africa. This language has a grammatical structure similar to Haitian Creole, possibly making Creole arelexificationof Fon with vocabulary from French. The two languages are often compared:
There are a number ofTainoinfluences in Haitian Creole; many objects, fruit and animal names are eitherhaitianizedor have a similar pronunciation. Many towns, places or sites have their official name being a translation of the Taino word.
Haitian Creole developed in the 17th and 18th centuries in the colony ofSaint-Domingue, in a setting that mixed speakers of various Niger–Congo languages with French colonists.In the early 1940s under PresidentÉlie Lescot, attempts were made to standardize the language. American linguistic expertFrank Laubachand Irish Methodist missionaryH. Ormonde McConnelldeveloped a standardizedHaitian Creole orthography. Although some regarded the orthography highly, it was generally not well received.Itsorthographywas standardized in 1979. That same year Haitian Creole was elevated in status by the Act of 18 September 1979.TheInstitut Pédagogique Nationalestablished an official orthography for Creole, and slight modifications were made over the next two decades. For example, thehyphen (-)is no longer used, nor is the apostrophe.The only accent mark retained is thegrave accentin⟨è⟩and⟨ò⟩.
The Constitution of 1987 upgraded Haitian Creole to a national language alongside French.It classified French as thelangue d'instructionor "language of instruction", and Creole was classified as anoutil d'enseignementor 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.
Even without government recognition, by the end of the 19th century, there were already literary texts written in Haitian Creole such asOswald Durand'sChoucouneandGeorges Sylvain'sCric?Crac!.Félix Morisseau-Leroywas another influential author of Haitian Creole work. Since the 1980s, many educators, writers, and activists have written literature in Haitian Creole. In 2001,Open Gate: An Anthology of Haitian Creole Poetrywas published. It was the first time a collection of Haitian Creole poetry was published in both Haitian Creole and English.On 28 October 2004, the Haitian dailyLe Matinfirst 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.Literature in Haitian Creole is also used to educate the public on the dictatorial social and political forces in Haiti.
Although bothFrenchand Haitian Creole are official languages inHaiti, French is often considered the high language and Haitian Creole as the low language in thediglossic relationshipof these two languages in society.That is to say, for the minority of Haitian population that is bilingual, the use of these two languages largely depends on the social context: standard French is used more in public, especially in formal situations, whereas Haitian Creole is used more on a daily basis and is often heard in ordinary conversation.
There is a large population in Haiti that speaks only Haitian Creole, whether under formal or informal conditions:
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.
Haitian Creole has aphonemic orthographywith 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:⟨a⟩,⟨an⟩,⟨b⟩,⟨ch⟩,⟨d⟩,⟨e⟩,⟨è⟩,⟨en⟩,⟨f⟩,⟨g⟩,⟨h⟩,⟨i⟩,⟨j⟩,⟨k⟩,⟨l⟩,⟨m⟩,⟨n⟩,⟨ng⟩,⟨o⟩,⟨ò⟩,⟨on⟩,⟨ou⟩,⟨oun⟩,⟨p⟩,⟨r⟩,⟨s⟩,⟨t⟩,⟨ui⟩,⟨v⟩,⟨w⟩,⟨y⟩, and⟨z⟩.The letters⟨c⟩and⟨u⟩are always associated with another letter (in themultigraphs⟨ch⟩,⟨ou⟩,⟨oun⟩, and⟨ui⟩). The Haitian Creole alphabet has no⟨q⟩or⟨x⟩; when⟨x⟩is used in loanwords and proper nouns, it represents the sounds/ks/,/kz/, or/gz/.
The first technical orthography for Haitian Creole was developed in 1940 byH. Ormonde McConnellandPrimrose McConnell, Irish Methodist missionaries. It was later revised with the help ofFrank Laubach, resulting in the creation of what is known as theMcConnell–Laubach orthography.
The McConnell–Laubach orthography received substantial criticism from members of the Haitian elite. Haitian scholarCharles Pressoircritiqued the McConnell–Laubach orthography for its lack of codifiedfront rounded vowels, which are typically used only by francophone elites.Another criticism was of the broad use of the letters⟨k⟩,⟨w⟩, and⟨y⟩, which Pressoir argued looked "too American".This criticism of the "American look" of the orthography was shared by many educated Haitians, who also criticized its association withProtestantism.The last of Pressoir's criticisms was that "the use of the circumflex to mark nasalized vowels" treated nasal sounds differently from the way they are represented in French, which he feared would inhibit the learning of French.
The creation of the orthography was essentially an articulation of the language ideologies of those involved and brought out political and social tensions between competing groups. A large portion of this tension lay in the ideology held by many that the French language is superior, which led to resentment of the language by some Haitians and an admiration for it from others.This orthographical controversy boiled down to an attempt to unify a conception of Haitian national identity. Where⟨k⟩and⟨w⟩seemed too Anglo-Saxon and American imperialistic,⟨c⟩and⟨ou⟩were symbolic of French colonialism.
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.The first written text of Haitian Creole was composed in the French-lexicon in a poem calledLisette quitté la plainein 1757 byDuvivier de la Mahautière, a white Creole planter.
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:Li ale travay nan maten(lit."He goes to work in the morning") could be transcribed as:
Haitian Creole grammar is highlyanalytical: for example, verbs are not inflected for tense or person, and there is nogrammatical gender, which means that adjectives and articles are not inflected according to the noun. The primary word order issubject–verb–objectas it is in French and English.
Many grammatical features, particularly the pluralization of nouns and indication of possession, are indicated by appending certain markers, likeyo, to the main word. There has been a debate going on for some years as to whether these markers areaffixesorclitics, and if punctuation such as the hyphen should be used to connect them to the word.
Although the language's vocabulary has many words related to their French-language cognates, its sentence structure is like that of the West AfricanFon language.
There are six pronouns: first, second, and third person, each in both singular, and plural; all are of French etymological origin.There is no difference between direct and indirect objects.
Definite nouns are made plural when followed by the wordyo; indefinite plural nouns are unmarked.
Possession is indicated by placing the possessor or possessive pronoun after the item possessed. In the Capois dialect of northern Haiti,aoranis placed before the possessive pronoun.  Note, however, that this is not considered the standard Kreyòl most often heard in the media or used in writing.
Possession does not indicate definiteness ("my friend" as opposed to "a friend of mine"), and possessive constructions are often followed by a definite article.
The language has two indefinite articles,onandyon(pronounced/õ/and/jõ/) which correspond to Frenchunandune.Yonis derived from the Frenchil y a un("there is a"). Both are used only with singular nouns, and are placed before the noun:
In Haitian Creole, the definite article has five forms,and it is placedafterthe noun it modifies. The final syllable of the preceding word determines which form the definite article takes.If the last sound is anoral consonantor a glide (spelled 'y' or 'w'), and if it is preceded by anoral vowel, the definite article isla:
If the last sound is anoral consonantand is preceded by anasal vowel, the definite article islan:
If the last sound is anoral voweland is preceded by anoral consonant, the definite article isa:
If the last sound is anyoral vowelother thaniorouand is preceded by anasal consonant, then the definite article is alsoa:
If a word ends inmi,mou,ni,nou, or if it ends with anynasal vowel, then the definite article isan:
If the last sound is anasal consonant, the definite article isnan, but may also belan:
There is a single wordsathat corresponds to English "this" and to "that" (and to Frenchce,ceci,cela, andça). As in English, it may be used as ademonstrative, except that it is placedafterthe noun that it qualifies. It is often followed byaoryo(in order to marknumber):sa a("this here" or "that there"):
As in English, it may also be used as a pronoun, replacing a noun:
Many verbs in Haitian Creole are the same spoken words as the Frenchinfinitive, but there is noconjugationin the language; the verbs have one form only, and changes intense,mood, andaspectare indicated by the use ofmarkers:
The concept expressed in English by theverb "tobe"is expressed in Haitian Creole by three words,se,ye, and sometimese.
The verbse(pronounced similarly to the English word "say") is used to link a subject with apredicate nominative:
Thesubjectof a sentence withsemight not be included. In which case, the sentence is interpreted as if the subject weresa("this" or "that") orli("he", "she" or "it"):
To express "I want to be", usuallyvin("tobecome") is used instead ofse.
Yealso means "tobe", but is placed exclusively at theendof a sentence, after thepredicateand thesubject(in that order):
Haitian Creole hasstative verbs, which means that the verb "tobe" is notcovertwhen followed by anadjective. Therefore,maladmeans both "sick" and "to be sick":
The verb "to have" isgenyen, often shortened togen.
The verbgenyen(orgen) also means "there is" or "there are":
The Haitian Creole word for "to know" and "to know how" iskonnen, which is often shortened tokonn.
Fèmeans "do" or "make". It has a broad range of meanings, as it is one of the most common verbs used inidiomatic phrases.
The verbkapab(or shortened toka,kaporkab) means "to be able to (do something)". It refers to both "capability" and "availability":
There is noconjugationin Haitian Creole. In the present non-progressive tense, one just uses the basic verb form forstative verbs:
When the basic form ofaction verbsis used without any verbmarkers, it is generally understood as referring to the past:
Manjemeans both "food" and "to eat", asmangerdoes inCanadian French;m ap manje bon manjemeans "I am eating good food".
For othertenses, special "tense marker" words are placed before the verb. The basic ones are:
Simple pastorpast perfect:
Pastprogressive:
Present progressive:
For thepresent progressive, it is customary, though not necessary, to addkounyea("rightnow"):
Also,ap manjecan mean "will eat" depending on the context of the sentence:
Near or definitefuture:
Future:
Other examples:
Recent pastmarkers includefèkandsòt(both mean "just" or "just now" and are often used together):
A verbmoodmarker ista, corresponding to English "would" and equivalent to the French conditional tense:
The wordpacomes before a verb and any tense markers to negate it:
Most of the lexicon of Creole is derived from French, with significant changes inpronunciationandmorphology; often the Frenchdefinite articlewas retained as part of the noun. For example, the French definite articlelainla lune("the moon") was incorporated into the Creole noun for moon:lalin. However, the language also inherited many words of different origins, among themWolof,Fon,Kongo, English, Spanish,Portuguese,TainoandArabic.
Haitian Creole creates and borrows new words to describe new or old concepts and realities. Examples of this arefè bakwhich was borrowed from English and means "to move backwards" (the original word derived from French isrekilefromreculer), and also from English,napkin, which is being used as well astòchon, from the Frenchtorchon.
Althoughnègandblanhave similar words in French (nègre, a pejorative to refer to black people, andblanc, meaning white, or white person), the meanings they carry in French do not apply in Haitian Creole.Nègmeans "a person" or "a man" (like "guy" or "dude" in American English).The wordblangenerally means "foreigner" or "not from Haiti". Thus, a non-black Haitian man (usually biracial) could be callednèg, while a black person from the US could be referred to asblan.
Etymologically, the wordnègis derived from the Frenchnègreand is cognate with the Spanishnegro("black", both thecolorand thepeople).
There are many other Haitian Creole terms for specific tones of skin includinggrimo,bren,roz, andmawon. Some Haitians consider such labels as offensive because of their association with color discrimination and the Haitian class system, while others use the terms freely.
Proverbs play a central role in traditional Haitian culture and Haitian Creole speakers make frequent use of them as well as of other metaphors.
Haitian Creole is used widely among Haitians who have relocated to other countries, particularly theUnited StatesandCanada. Some of the larger Creole-speaking populations are found inMontreal,Quebec(where French is the official language),New York City,Boston, andCentralandSouth Florida(Miami,Fort Lauderdale, andPalm Beach). To reach out to the large Haitian population, government agencies have produced various public service announcements, school-parent communications, and other materials in Haitian Creole. For instance,Miami-Dade CountyinFloridasends out paper communications in Haitian Creole in addition to English and Spanish. In the Boston area, theBoston subway systemand area hospitals and medical offices post announcements in Haitian Creole as well as English.North America's only Creole-language television network isHBN, based in Miami.  These areas also each have more than half a dozen Creole-languageAM radiostations.
Haitian Creole and Haitian culture are taught in many colleges in the United States and the Bahamas. York College at theCity University of New Yorkfeatures a minor in Haitian Creole.Indiana University's Albert Valdman founded the country's first Creole Institutewhere Haitian Creole, among other facets of Haiti, were studied and researched. TheUniversity of Kansas,Lawrencehas an Institute of Haitian studies, founded byBryant Freeman. TheUniversity of Massachusetts Boston,Florida International University, andIndiana University Bloomingtonoffer seminars and courses annually at their Haitian Creole Summer Institutes.Brown University,University of Miami,Tulane University, andDuke Universityalso offer Haitian Creole classes, andColumbia UniversityandNYUhave jointly offered a course since 2015.TheUniversity of Chicagobegan offering Creole courses in 2010.
As of 2015, theNew York City Department of Educationcounted 2,838 Haitian Creole-speakingEnglish-language learners(ELLs) in the city's K–12 schools, making it the seventh most common home language of ELLs citywide and the fifth most common home language of Brooklyn ELLs.Because of the large population of Haitian Creole-speaking students within NYC schools, various organizations have been established to respond to the needs of these students. For example, Flanbwayan and Gran Chimen Sant Kiltirèl, both located in Brooklyn, New York, aim to promote education and Haitian culture through advocacy, literacy projects, and cultural/artistic endeavors.
Haitian Creole is the second most spoken language inCubaafter Spanish,where over 300,000Haitian immigrantsspeak it. It is recognized as a minority language in Cuba and a considerable number of Cubans speak it fluently. Most of these speakers have never been to Haiti and do not possess Haitian ancestry, but merely learned it in their communities. In addition, there is a Haitian Creole radio station operating inHavana.
As of 2012, the language was also spoken by over 450,000 Haitians who reside in the neighboringDominican Republic,although the locals do not speak it. However, some estimates suggest that there are over a million speakers due to a huge population of undocumented immigrants from Haiti.
As of 2009, up to 80,000 Haitians were estimated residing in the Bahamas,where about 20,000 speak Haitian Creole. It is the third most‑spoken language after English andBahamian Creole.
After the2010 Haiti earthquake, international aid workers desperately needed translation tools for communicating in Haitian Creole. Furthermore, international organizations had little idea whom to contact as translators. As an emergency measure,Carnegie Mellon Universityreleased data for its own research into the public domain.Microsoft ResearchandGoogle Translateimplementedalpha versionmachine translatorsbased on the Carnegie Mellon data.
Several smartphone apps have been released, including learning with flashcards byBykiand two medical dictionaries, one by Educa Vision and a second byUltralingua, the latter of which includes an audio phrase book and a section on cultural anthropology.