Haitian Creole

File:Anbasadè Hervé Denis ap pale Relasyon ki dwe Egziste ant Ayiti ak Dyaspora a.webm

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

Haitian Creole (Template:IPAc-en; Template:Langx, ; or simply Creole (Template:Langx), is an African mixed French-based creole language that is mutually unintelligible to native French speakers and spoken by 10 to 12Template:Nbspmillion Haitian people worldwide. 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.

Northern, Central, and Southern dialects are the three main dialects of Haitian Creole. The Northern dialect is predominantly spoken in Cap-Haïtien, Central is spoken in Port-au-Prince, and 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 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 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 19thTemplate:Nbspcentury. 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 20thTemplate:Nbspcentury, 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.

Haitian Creole is also spoken in regions that have received migration from Haiti, including other Caribbean islands, French Guiana, Martinique, France, Canada (particularly Quebec) and the United States (including the U.S. state of Louisiana). 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.

Origins

Haitian Creole contains elements from both the Romance group of Indo-European languages through its superstrate, French, as well as influences from African 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 produced tobacco, cotton, and sugar cane on the island. Throughout this period, the population was made of roughly equal numbers of (white workers), (free people of colour) and slaves. The economy shifted more decisively into sugar production about 1690, just before the French colony of was 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 from Niger-Congo-speaking territory, and particularly speakers of Kwa languages, such as Gbe from West Africa and the Central Tano languages, and Bantu languages from 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 of 's sugar boom coincided with emergent Gbe predominance in the French Caribbean. In the interval during which Singler hypothesizes the language evolved, the Gbe population was around 50% of the kidnapped enslaved population.

Classical French () and (Norman, and dialects, Gallo and Picard) were spoken during the 17th and 18th centuries in , as well as in New France and French 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.

Saint-Domingue Creole French

File:Costumes de Differents Pays, 'Negre and Negresse de St. Domingue' LACMA M.83.190.354.jpg

A rich Creole planter of Saint-Domingue with his wife

In Saint-Domingue, people of all classes spoke Creole French. There were both lower and higher registers of the language, depending on education and class. Creole served as a lingua franca throughout the West Indies.

The Entrepreneur: I just learned, sir, that you garnered damages in your crossing.

The Captain: That's true.

The Entrepreneur: Do you believe that your ship needs repair?

The Captain: It careened before we left, but the blow from the hurricane put me in the position of getting it refitted again.

The Entrepreneur: Is it taking on a lot of water?

The Captain: The first days after the storm, we took on thirty six inches in twenty four hours; but in clear weather I made them take as much of it out as I was able, and attached it the best we possibly could; we're presently taking on not even thirteen inches.

---

File:Flag of Haiti (1964–1986, civil).svg

The flag of the Empire of Haiti (1804-1806)

File:Comte Coriolan Dérival Lévêque.jpg

A Haitian planter

Haiti, 1st year, 5th day of independence.

My dear mother,

Our ambassadors left to get money from France, I want to write to you through them, to tell you how much we are happy. The French are good, they forgot everything. Our fathers revolted against them, our fathers killed their fathers, sons, managers, and our fathers burned down their plantations. Well, they came to find us, and told us, "you give thirty million gourdes to us and we'll leave Haiti to you? (And we replied) Will you come buy sugar, coffee, and indigo from us? You will pay only half directly to us." Do you believe my dear mother, that we accepted the deal? Our President hugged the good papa Makau (the French ambassador). They drank to the health of the King of France, to the health of Boyer, to the health of Christophe, to the health of Haiti, to independence. Then they danced Balcindé and Bai chi ca colé with Haitian women. I can't tell you how much all of this is so beautiful and noble.

Come see your son at his plantation, my mother, he will give you cassava, goyava, and pimentade. He will be happy if you can bring him a white Frenchwoman for a wife. Tell her, if you please. We won't kill anymore whites, brothers, friends, and camarades of ours.

Your son hugs you, my dear mother.

Congo, free and independent Haitian, at Trou-Salé.

Difference 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. 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 experienced semantic change: words that had a single meaning in the 17th century have changed or have been replaced in both languages. For example, "" ("What is your name?") corresponds to the French "". Although the average French speaker would not understand this phrase, every word in it is in fact of French origin: "who"; "manner"; "you", and "to call", but the verb has been replaced by in modern French and reduced to a meaning of "to flag down".

Claire Lefebvre proposed the theory of relexification, arguing that the process of relexification (the replacement of the phonological representation of a substratum lexical item with the phonological representation 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.

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:

French	Fon	Haitian Creole	English
			the house

Taino influence

There are a number of Taino 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 Taino word.

Taino	Haitian Creole	Meaning
Ayiti, Ayti	Ayiti, Haiti	The name of the country and the island. It means "Land of Great Mountains"
Gonaibo	Gonayiv, or Gonaïves	The biggest city and capital of Artibonite
Yaguana	Leyogàn, Léogane	A coastal town south of Port-au-Prince and capital of the cacicat of Xaragua
Guanabo	Gonav, Gonâve or Lagonav	The biggest satellite island of Hispaniola and last refuge of the Taino
Jatibonico	Latibonit or Artibonite	The longest river of Hispaniola and the biggest and most populous département of Haiti. In Taino the word mean "sacred water"
Canari	Kannari	A clay pot to keep water cool
Amani-y	Amani-y	The nickname of the town of Saint-Marc and famous beach
Mamey	Mamey, or Abriko	The nickname of the town of Abricots
Tiburon	Tibiwon	The same word means "Tiburon", a coastal town in the South Peninsula (also called Tiburon Peninsula) and a river near the town
Mabouya	Mabouya	Iguana
Mabi	Mabi	A bitter drink known in the West Indies as Mauby
Bajacu	Bayakou	The northern star, dawn, a Vodoun Loa associated with the star

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 hyphen (-) is no longer used, nor is the apostrophe.Template:RpTemplate:Rp The only accent mark retained is the grave accent in Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr.Template:Rp

Becoming an official language

The Constitution of 1987 upgraded Haitian Creole to a national language alongside French. 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.Template:Rp French is spoken by only a small percentage of citizens.

Literature development

Even without government recognition, by the end of the 19th century, there were already literary texts written in Haitian Creole such as 's and 's . was 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 Poetry was 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 daily first published an entire edition in Haitian Creole in observance of the country's newly instated "Creole Day".Template:Rp 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.

Notable Haitian Creole-language writers

• (b. 1962), poet and novelist
• (1936-2025), poet, playwright, painter, musician, activist
• (b. 1967), international press activist
• (1942–2017), poet, novelist and art critic
• (1912–1998), poet and playwright
• (b. 1956), writer and visual artist
• (b. 1956), poet and novelist

Sociolinguistics

Role in society

Although both French and Haitian Creole are official languages in Haiti, French is often considered the high language and Haitian Creole as the low language in the diglossic relationship of 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:

French plays no role in the very formal situation of a Haitian peasant (more than 80% of the population make a living from agriculture) presiding at a family gathering after the death of a member, or at the worship of the family lwa or voodoo spirits, or contacting a Catholic priest for a church baptism, marriage, or solemn mass, or consulting a physician, nurse, or dentist, or going to a civil officer to declare a death or birth.

— Template:Comma separated entries

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: Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, and Template:Angbr.Template:Rp The letters Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr are always associated with another letter (in the multigraphs Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, and Template:Angbr). The Haitian Creole alphabet has no Template:Angbr or Template:Angbr; when Template:Angbr is used in loanwords and proper nouns, it represents the sounds , , or .Template:Rp

Consonants Haitian orthography IPA Examples English approximation b Template:IPA link bagay bow ch Template:IPA link cho shoe d Template:IPA link dous do f Template:IPA link fig festival g Template:IPA link gwo gain j Template:IPA link jedi measure k Template:IPA link kle sky l Template:IPA link liv clean m Template:IPA link machin mother n Template:IPA link nòt note ng Template:IPA link bilding feeling p Template:IPA link pase spy r Template:IPA link rezon between go and loch s Template:IPA link sis six t Template:IPA link tout to v Template:IPA link vyann vent z Template:IPA link zewo zero Non-native consonants dj Template:IPA link djaz jazz Semivowels w Template:IPA link wi we y Template:IPA link pye yes Semivowel followed by vowel (digraph) ui Template:IPA linkTemplate:IPA link uit roughly like sweet

Vowels Haitian orthography IPA Examples English approximation a (or à before an n) Template:IPA link abako pàn bra e Template:IPA link ale hey è Template:IPA link fèt festival i Template:IPA link lide machine o Template:IPA link oranj blow ò Template:IPA link deyò sort ou Template:IPA link nou you Nasal vowels an (when not followed by a vowel) Template:IPA link anpil many en (when not followed by a vowel) Template:IPA link mwen en Template:IPAblink on (when not followed by a vowel) Template:IPA link tonton tone Template:IPAblink

• There are no silent letters in the Haitian Creole orthography.
• All sounds are always spelled the same, except when a vowel carries a grave accent Template:Angbr before Template:Angbr, which makes it an oral vowel instead of a nasal vowel:
  • Template:Angbr for and Template:Angbr for ;
  • Template:Angbr for and Template:Angbr for ; and
  • Template:Angbr for and Template:Angbr for .
• When immediately followed by a vowel in a word, the digraphs denoting the nasal vowels (Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, and sometimes Template:Angbr) are pronounced as an oral vowel followed by .
• There is some ambiguity in the pronunciation of the high vowels of the letters Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr when followed in spelling by Template:Angbr. 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 ("vodou priest").
• 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.Template:Rp

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.Template:Rp Another criticism was of the broad use of the letters Template:Angbr, Template:Angbr, and Template:Angbr, which Pressoir argued looked "too American".Template:Rp This criticism of the "American look" of the orthography was shared by many educated Haitians, who also criticized its association with Protestantism.Template:Rp 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.Template:Rp

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.Template:Rp This orthographical controversy boiled down to an attempt to unify a conception of Haitian national identity. Where Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr seemed too Anglo-Saxon and American imperialistic, Template:Angbr and Template:Angbr were symbolic of French colonialism.Template:Rp

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. The first written text of Haitian Creole was composed in the French-lexicon in a poem called Lisette quitté la plaine in 1757 by Duvivier 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 HaitianTemplate:NbspCreole to written French, a language whose spelling has a complicated relation to pronunciation. Unlike the phonetic orthography, French orthography of HaitianTemplate:NbspCreole 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 HaitianTemplate:NbspCreole, removing the silent letters. For example:
(lit. "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.Template:Rp

Although the language's vocabulary has many words related to their French-language cognates, its sentence structure is like that of the West African Fon language.

Haitian Creole	Fon	French	English
Template:Interlinear	Template:Interlinear	Template:Interlinear	my bike
Template:Interlinear	Template:Interlinear	Template:Interlinear	my bikes

Pronouns

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.

Haitian Creole		FonTemplate:Rp	French	English
Long form	Short formTemplate:Rp
				I
				me
Template:EfnTemplate:Efn				you (singular), thou (archaic)
Template:Efn		,
				she, her
				him, it
				her, it
				him, her, it
				him, her, it
				we, us
			Template:Rp	you (plural)Template:Efn
Template:Efn				they
				them

Possessive pronouns

Singular

Haitian Creole	French	English
		mine (masculine)
		mine (feminine)
		yours (masculine)
		yours (feminine)
		his/hers/its (masculine)
		his/hers/its (feminine)
		ours
		yours ("of you-PLURAL")
		theirs

Plural

Haitian Creole	French	English
		mine
		yours
		his/hers/its
		ours
		yours ("of you-PLURAL")
		theirs

Plural of nouns

Definite nouns are made plural when followed by the word ; indefinite plural nouns are unmarked.

Haitian Creole	French	English
		the books
		the cars
		the girls put on dresses

Possession

Possession is indicated by placing the possessor or possessive pronoun after the item possessed. In the Capois dialect of northern Haiti, or is 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.

Haitian Creole	French	English
		his money
		her money
		my family
(Capois dialect)
		their house
		their houses
		your father
		Pierre's cat
		Marie's chair
		Jean's father's friend
		our friend's neighbor's father

Indefinite article

The language has two indefinite articles, and (pronounced and ) which correspond to French and . is derived from the French ("there is a"). Both are used only with singular nouns, and are placed before the noun:

Haitian Creole	French	English
		a knife
		a necktie

Definite article

In Haitian Creole, the definite article has five forms,Template:Rp and it is placed after the noun it modifies. The final syllable of the preceding word determines which form the definite article takes.Template:Rp If the last sound is an oral consonant or a glide (spelled 'y' or 'w'), and if it is preceded by an oral vowel, the definite article is :

Haitian Creole	French	English	Note
		the tie
		the book
		the house	From French "la cahut(t)e" (English "hut, shack")
		the crow

If the last sound is an oral consonant and is preceded by a nasal vowel, the definite article is :

Haitian Creole	French	English
		the lamp
		the bank

If the last sound is an oral vowel and is preceded by an oral consonant, the definite article is :

Haitian Creole	French	English
		the knife
		the country

If the last sound is any oral vowel other than i or ou and is preceded by a nasal consonant, then the definite article is also a:

Haitian Creole	French	English
		the army
		the pineapple
dine a	le dîner	the dinner
nò a	le nord	the north

If a word ends in , , , , or if it ends with any nasal vowel, then the definite article is an:

Haitian Creole	French	English
		the family
		the knee
		the dog
		the bridge

If the last sound is a nasal consonant, the definite article is , but may also be :

Haitian Creole	French	English
		the car
		the telephone	The spelling "telefòn" is also attested.
		the woman

Demonstratives

There is a single word that corresponds to English "this" and to "that" (and to French , , , and ). As in English, it may be used as a demonstrative, except that it is placed after the noun that it qualifies. It is often followed by or (in order to mark number): ("this here" or "that there"):

Haitian Creole	French	English
		this garden is beautiful
		that garden is beautiful

As in English, it may also be used as a pronoun, replacing a noun:

Haitian Creole	French	English
		this is my friend
		that is my friend
		this is my brother's dog
		that is my brother's dog

Verbs

Many verbs in Haitian Creole are the same spoken words as the French infinitive, but there is no conjugation in the language; the verbs have one form only, and changes in tense, mood, and aspect are indicated by the use of markers:

Haitian Creole	French	English
		he goes to work in the morning
		she goes to work in the morning
		he sleeps in the evening
		she sleeps in the evening
		he reads the Bible
		she reads the Bible
		I make food
		I cook
		we always study

Copula

The concept expressed in English by the [[copula (linguistics)|verb "toTemplate:Nbspbe"]] is expressed in Haitian Creole by three words, , , and sometimes .

The verb (pronounced similarly to the English word "say") is used to link a subject with a predicate nominative:

Haitian Creole	French	English
		he is my brother
		I'm a doctor
		this is a mango tree
		that is a mango tree
		we are friends

The subject of a sentence with might not be included. In which case, the sentence is interpreted as if the subject were ("this" or "that") or ("he", "she" or "it"):

Haitian Creole	French	English
		that's a good idea
		this is a good idea
		that's my new shirt
		this is my new shirt

To express "I want to be", usually ("toTemplate:Nbspbecome") is used instead of .

Haitian Creole	French	English
		he will be my brother-in-law	he will be my stepbrother
		I want to become a doctor
		that will become a mango tree
		this will become a mango tree
		we will be friends

also means "toTemplate:Nbspbe", but is placed exclusively at the end of a sentence, after the predicate and the subject (in that order):

Haitian Creole	French	English
		I am Haitian
	lit.	How are you?

Haitian Creole has stative verbs, which means that the verb "toTemplate:Nbspbe" is not covert when followed by an adjective. Therefore, means both "sick" and "to be sick":

Haitian Creole	French	English
		I have a sick sister
		my sister is sick

To have

The verb "to have" is , often shortened to .

Haitian Creole	French	English
		I have money in the bank

There is

The verb (or ) also means "there is" or "there are":

Haitian Creole	French	English
		there are many Haitians in Florida
		there is someone here
		there is someone there
		there is nobody here
		there is nobody there

To know

The Haitian Creole word for "to know" and "to know how" is , which is often shortened to .

Haitian Creole	French	English
		Do you know his name?
		Do you know her name?
		I know where he is
		I know where she is
		I know how to cook (lit. "I know how to make food")
		Have you been to Haiti? (lit. "Do you know to go to Haiti?")
		He cannot read French (lit. "He doesn't know how to read French")
		She cannot read French (lit. "She doesn't know how to read French")

To do

means "do" or "make". It has a broad range of meanings, as it is one of the most common verbs used in idiomatic phrases.

Haitian Creole	French	English
		How did you learn to speak Haitian Creole?
		Marie knows how to make cornmeal.

To be able to

The verb (or shortened to , or ) means "to be able to (do something)". It refers to both "capability" and "availability":

Haitian Creole	French	English
		I can go tomorrow
		maybe I can do that tomorrow
		we can go later

Tense markers

There is no conjugation in Haitian Creole. In the present non-progressive tense, one just uses the basic verb form for stative verbs:

Haitian Creole	French	English
		I speak Creole

When the basic form of action verbs is used without any verb markers, it is generally understood as referring to the past:

Haitian Creole	French	English
		I ate
		you ate
		he ate
		she ate
		we ate
		they ate

means both "food" and "to eat", as does in Canadian French; means "I am eating good food".

For other tenses, special "tense marker" words are placed before the verb. The basic ones are:

Tense marker	Tense	Annotations
	simple past	from French ("been")
	past progressive	a combination of and , "was doing"
	present progressive	with and , the pronouns nearly always take the short form (, , , , etc.). From 18th-century French , progressive form
	future	some limitations on use. From French ("to have to")
	near or definite future	translates to "going to". Contraction of French ("going to")
	conditional future	a combination of and ("will do")

Simple past or past perfect:

Haitian Creole	English
	I ate
	I had eaten
	you ate
	you had eaten
	he ate
	she ate
	he had eaten
	she had eaten
	we ate
	we had eaten
	they ate
	they had eaten

Past progressive:

Haitian Creole	English
	I was eating
	you were eating
	he was eating
	she was eating
	we were eating
	they were eating

Present progressive:

Haitian Creole	English
	I am eating
	you are eating
	he is eating
	she is eating
	we are eating
	they are eating

For the present progressive, it is customary, though not necessary, to add ("rightTemplate:Nbspnow"):

Haitian Creole	English
	I am eating right now
	they are eating right now

Also, can mean "will eat" depending on the context of the sentence:

Haitian Creole	English
	I will eat after I pray
	I am eating after I pray
	I will not say that
	I am not saying that

Near or definite future:

Haitian Creole	English
	I am going to eat
	you are going to eat
	he is going to eat
	she is going to eat
	we are going to eat
	they are going to eat

Future:

Haitian Creole	English
	see you later (lit. "we will see later")

Other examples:

Haitian Creole	English
	I saw your friend yesterday
	we spoke for a long time
	when he was eight years old...
	when she was eight years old...
	I will work
	I'm going to work
	we'll read it tomorrow
	we are going to read it tomorrow
	I was walking and I saw a dog

Recent past markers include and (both mean "just" or "just now" and are often used together):

Haitian Creole	English
	I just entered the house

A verb mood marker is , corresponding to English "would" and equivalent to the French conditional tense:

Haitian Creole	English
	they would like to play
	I would come if I had a car
	he would forget you if you weren't here
	she would forget you if you weren't here

Negation

The word comes before a verb and any tense markers to negate it:

Haitian Creole	English
	Rose doesn't want to go
	Rose didn't want to go

Lexicon

Most of the lexicon of Creole is derived from French, with significant changes in pronunciation and morphology; often the French definite article was retained as part of the noun. For example, the French definite article la in la lune ("the moon") was incorporated into the Creole noun for moon: . However, the language also inherited many words of different origins, among them Wolof, Fon, Kongo, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Taino and Arabic.

Haitian Creole creates and borrows new words to describe new or old concepts and realities. Examples of this are which was borrowed from English and means "to move backwards" (the original word derived from French is from ), and also from English, napkin, which is being used as well as , from the French .

Sample

Haitian Creole	IPA	Origin	English
ablado		Template:Langx	"a talker"
anasi		Template:Langx	spider
annanna		Template:Langx; also used in French	pineapple
Ayiti		Template:Langx	Haiti ("mountainous land")
bagay		Template:Langx	thing
bannann		Template:Langx	banana/plantain
bekàn		Template:Langx	bicycle
bokit		bucket
bòkò		Template:Langx	sorcerer
Bondye		Template:Langx	God
chenèt		Template:Langx (French Antilles)	gap between the two front teeth
chouk		Template:Langx	poke
dekabès		Template:Langx	two-headed win during dominos
dèyè		Template:Langx	behind
diri		Template:Langx	rice
èkondisyone	/ɛkondisjone/	air conditioner	air conditioner
Etazini		Template:Langx	United States
fig		Template:Langx	banana
je		Template:Langx	eye
kannistè		canister	tin can
kay		Template:Langx	house
kle		Template:Langx	key, wrench
kle kola		Template:Langx	bottle opener
		cola
kònfleks		corn flakes	breakfast cereal
kawotchou		Template:Langx	tire
lalin		Template:Langx	moon
li		Template:Langx	he, she, him, her, it
makak		Template:Langx	monkey
manbo		Template:Langx or Template:Langx	vodou priestess
marasa		Template:Langx	twins
matant		Template:Langx	aunt, aged woman
moun		Template:Langx	people, person
mwen		Template:Langx	I, me, my, myself
nimewo		Template:Langx	number
oungan		Template:Langx	vodou priest
piman		Template:Langx	a very hot pepper
pann		Template:Langx	clothesline
podyab		Template:Langx or Template:Langx	poor devil
pwa		Template:Langx	bean
sapat		Template:Langx; Template:Langx	sandal
seyfing		surfing	sea-surfing
tonton		Template:Langx	uncle, aged man
vwazen		Template:Langx	neighbor
zonbi		Kongo: nzumbi	soulless corpse, living dead, ghost, zombie
zwazo		Template:Langx	bird

and

Although and have similar words in French (, a pejorative to refer to black people, and , meaning white, or white person), the meanings they carry in French do not apply in Haitian Creole. means "a person" or "a man" (like "guy" or "dude" in American English). The word generally means "foreigner" or "not from Haiti". Thus, a non-black Haitian man (usually biracial) could be called , while a black person from the US could be referred to as .

Etymologically, the word is derived from the French and is cognate with the Spanish ("black", both the color and the people).

There are many other Haitian Creole terms for specific tones of skin including , , , and . 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.

Examples

Haitian Creole	English
Papa Nou ki nan sièl, ké non ou jouinn tout réspè, ké règn ou vini, ké volonté ou akonpli , sou té a tankou nan sièl. Ban nou jod a pin chak jou nou, padonnin nou péché nou, tankou nou padonnin moun ki ofansé nou. Pa minnin nou nan tentasion, min délivré nou an-ba malin an. Amen.	Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day, our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.

Salutations

Haitian Creole	English
A demen!	See you tomorrow!
A pi ta!	See you later!
Adye!	Good bye! (permanently)
Anchante!	Nice to meet you! (lit. "enchanted!")
Bon apre-midi!	Good afternoon!
Bòn chans!	Good luck!
Bòn nui!	Good night!
Bonjou!	Good day!
	Good morning!
Bonswa!	Good evening
Dezole!	Sorry!
Eskize m!	Excuse me!
Kenbe la!	Hang in there! (informal)
Ki jan ou rele?	What's your name?
Ki non ou?
Ki non w?
Kòman ou rele?
Mwen releTemplate:Nbsp	My name is...
Non m se.
Ki jan ou ye?	How are you?
Ki laj ou?	How old are you? (lit. "What is your age?")
Ki laj ou genyen?
Kòman ou ye?	How are you?
Kon si, kon sa	So, so
Kontinye konsa!	Keep it up!
M ap boule	I'm managing (informal; lit. "I'm burning") (common response to sa kap fèt and sak pase)
M ap kenbe	I'm hanging on (informal)
M ap viv	I'm living
Mal	Bad
Men wi	Of course
Mèsi	Thank you
Mèsi anpil	Many thanks
Mwen byen	I'm well
Mwen dakò	I agree
Mwen gen an	I'm years old
Mwen la	I'm so-so (informal; lit. "I'm here")
N a wè pita!	See you later! (lit. "We will see later!")
Orevwa!	Good bye (temporarily)
Pa mal	Not bad
Pa pi mal	Not so bad
Padon!	Pardon!
	Sorry!
	Move!
Padone m!	Pardon me!
	Forgive me!
Pòte w byen!	Take care! (lit. "Carry yourself well!")
Sa k ap fèt?	What's going on? (informal)
	What's up? (informal)
Sa k pase?	What's happening? (informal)
	What's up? (informal)
Tout al byen	All is well (lit. "All goes well")
Tout bagay anfòm	Everything is fine (lit. "Everything is in form")
Tout pa bon	All is not well (lit. "All is not good")

Proverbs and expressions

Proverbs play a central role in traditional Haitian culture and Haitian Creole speakers make frequent use of them as well as of other metaphors.

Proverbs

Haitian Creole	English
Men anpil, chay pa lou	Strength through unity (lit. "With many hands, the burden is not heavy"; Haitian Creole equivalent of the French on the coat of arms of Haiti, which reads )
Apre bal, tanbou lou	There are consequences to your actions (lit. "After the dance, the drum is heavy")
Sak vid pa kanpe	No work gets done on an empty stomach (lit. "An empty bag does not stand up")Template:Rp
Pitit tig se tig	Like father like son (lit. "The son of a tiger is a tiger")
Ak pasyans w ap wè tete pis	Anything is possible (lit. "With patience you will see the breast of the ant")
Bay kou bliye, pote mak sonje	The giver of the blow forgets, the carrier of the scar remembers
Mache chèche pa janm dòmi san soupe	You will get what you deserve
Bèl dan pa di zanmi	Not all smiles are friendly (lit. "Good teeth don't mean (that person is) a friend")
Bèl antèman pa di paradi	A beautiful funeral does not guarantee heaven
Bèl fanm pa di bon mennaj	A beautiful wife does not guarantee a happy marriage
Dan konn mòde lang	People who work together sometimes hurt each other (lit. "Teeth are known to bite the tongue")
Sa k rive koukouloulou a ka rive kakalanga tou	What happens to the dumb guy can happen to the smart one too (lit. "What happens to the turkey can happen to the rooster too")Template:Rp
Chak jou pa Dimanch	Your luck will not last forever (lit. "Not every day is Sunday")
Fanm pou yon tan, manman pou tout tan	A woman is for a time, a mother is for all timeTemplate:Rp
Nèg di san fè, Bondye fè san di	Man talks without doing, God does without talkingTemplate:Rp
Sa Bondye sere pou ou, lavalas pa ka pote l ale	What God has saved for you, nobody can take it away
Nèg rich se milat, milat pòv se nèg	A rich negro is a mulatto, a poor mulatto is a negro
Pale franse pa di lespri	Speaking French does not mean you are smartTemplate:Rp
Wòch nan dlo pa konnen doulè wòch nan solèy	The rock in the water does not know the pain of the rock in the sun
Ravèt pa janm gen rezon devan poul	Justice will always be on the side of the stronger (lit. "A cockroach in front of a chicken is never correct")
Si ou bwè dlo nan vè, respèkte vè a	If you drink water from a glass, respect the glass
Si travay te bon bagay, moun rich ta pran l lontan	If work were a good thing, the rich would have grabbed it a long time ago
Sèl pa vante tèt li di li sale	Let others praise you (lit. "Salt doesn't brag that it's salty," said to those who praise themselves)
Bouch granmoun santi, sak ladan l se rezon	Wisdom comes from the mouth of old people (lit. "The mouth of the old stinks but what's inside is wisdom")
Tout moun se moun	Everyone matters (lit. "Everybody is a person")

Expressions

Haitian Creole	English
Se lave men, siye l atè	It was useless work (lit. "Wash your hands and wipe them on the floor")
M ap di ou sa kasayòl te di bèf la	Mind your own business
Li pale franse	He cannot be trusted, he is full of himself (lit. "He speaks French")
Kreyòl pale, kreyòl konprann	Speak straightforwardly and honestly (lit. "Creole talks, Creole understands")Template:Rp
Bouche nen ou pou bwè dlo santi	You have to accept a bad situation (lit. "Pinch your nose to drink smelly water")Template:Rp
Mache sou pinga ou, pou ou pa pile: "Si m te konnen!"	"Be on your guard, so you don't have to say: 'If only I'd known!'"Template:Rp
Tann jis nou tounen pwa tann	To wait forever (lit. "left hanging until we became string beans" which is a word play on tann, which means both "to hang" and "to wait")
San pran souf	Without taking a breath; continuously
W ap konn jòj	Warning or threat of punishment or reprimand (lit. "You will know George")
Dis ti piti tankou ou	Dismissing or defying a threat or show of force (lit. "Ten little ones like you couldn't.")
Lè poul va fè dan	Never (lit. "When hens grow teeth")
Piti piti zwazo fè nich li	You will learn (lit. "Little by little the bird makes its nest")Template:Rp

Usage abroad

United States and Canada

File:Timoun Syèj (Creole).jpg

Haitian Creole display at a car rental counter in the Northwest Florida Beaches International AirportTemplate:Nbsp(2014).

File:Stop the Spread of Germs updated (Haitian Creole).pdf

A CDC-sponsored poster about the COVID-19 prevention in Haitian Creole.

Haitian Creole is used widely among Haitians who have relocated to other countries, particularly the United States and Canada. Some of the larger Creole-speaking populations are found in Montreal, Quebec (where French is the official language), New York City, Boston, and Central and South Florida (Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and Palm 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 County in Florida sends out paper communications in Haitian Creole in addition to English and Spanish. In the Boston area, the Boston subway system and area hospitals and medical offices post announcements in Haitian Creole as well as English. North America's only Creole-language television network is HBN, based in Miami. These areas also each have more than half a dozen Creole-language AM radio stations.

Haitian Creole and Haitian culture are taught in many colleges in the United States and the Bahamas. York College at the City University of New York features a minor in Haitian Creole. Indiana University's Albert Valdman founded the country's first Creole Institute where Haitian Creole, among other facets of Haiti, were studied and researched. The University of Kansas, Lawrence has an Institute of Haitian studies, founded by Bryant Freeman. The University of Massachusetts Boston, Florida International University, and Indiana University Bloomington offer seminars and courses annually at their Haitian Creole Summer Institutes. Brown University, University of Miami, Tulane University, and Duke University also offer Haitian Creole classes, and Columbia University and NYU have jointly offered a course since 2015. The University of Chicago began offering Creole courses in 2010.

Template:As of, the New York City Department of Education counted 2,838 Haitian Creole-speaking English-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.Template:Rp 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.

Cuba

Haitian Creole is the second most spoken language in Cuba after Spanish, where over 300,000 Haitian immigrants speak 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 in Havana.

Dominican Republic

Template:As of, the language was also spoken by over 450,000 Haitians who reside in the neighboring Dominican 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.

The Bahamas

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 and Bahamian Creole.

Software

After the 2010 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 University released data for its own research into the public domain. Microsoft Research and Google Translate implemented alpha version machine translators based on the Carnegie Mellon data.

Several smartphone apps have been released, including learning with flashcards by Byki and two medical dictionaries, one by Educa Vision and a second by Ultralingua, the latter of which includes an audio phrase book and a section on cultural anthropology.

See also

• Afro-Brazilians
• Akademi Kreyòl Ayisyen
• Antillean Creole French
• Creole language
• Louisiana Creole French
• Michel DeGraff
• Radio Haiti-Inter

External links

• Haitian Creole basic vocabulary (from Wiktionary's Swadesh-list appendix)
• Haitian Creole-English dictionary (PDF) Template:Webarchive