Creole: The language of Haiti
How was creole formed?
Creole was formed from the African slaves' efforts to speak the French that they heard when they arrived in the colony of Saint-Domingue, which is now Haiti. Slaves came from all over West Africa and spoke many different languages. The slaves were not able to communicate with each other due to the different African languages being spoken, so they tried to learn the common people's French called Popular French. Over time, this approximate form of French became more and more different from the French varieties and came to be recognized as a language in its own right--Creole.
Dialects
Creole has three main geographical dialects
- Northern dialect, spoken in Cap-Haitien, the second largest Haitian city
- Central dialect, spoken in the metropolitan area of Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti
- Southern dialect spoken in the area of Cayes, an important city in the south of Haiti
Grammar
Haitian Creole grammar is highly analytical: for example, verbs are not inflected for tense or person, and there is no grammatical gender—meaning that adjectives and articles are not inflected according to the noun. The primary word order (SVO) is the same as in French. Many grammatical features, particularly pluralization of nouns and indication of possession, are indicated by appending certain markers, like yo, to the main word. There has been a debate going on for some years as to whether these markers are affixes or clitics, and therefore what should be used to connect the affixes to the word: the most popular alternatives are a hyphen, an apostrophe or a space. It makes matters more complicated when the affix itself is shortened, perhaps making only one letter (such as m ' or w '). Although the lexicon is mostly French, the sentence structure is like that of the West African Fon language. More detailed information about Creole grammar is available here.
Gestures
A simple greeting in the Hatian culture consists of a kiss on the cheek or a hand shake. These symbolize a hello or a goodbye or a nice to see you again.
Common phrases
Click on the link to go to a website that has the common phrases used in Haiti.