Haitian Creole

Haitian Creole (/ˈheɪʃən ˈkriːoʊl/) is a French-based creole language spoken by 10–12 million people worldwide, and the only language of most Haitians. It is called kreyòl ayisyen or just kreyòl () by its speakers, and créole haïtien in Standard French. 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). Based largely on 18th-century French, it also has influences from Portuguese, Spanish, English, Taíno, and West African languages. It is not fully mutually intelligible with standard French, and has its own distinctive grammar. Haitians are the largest community in the world speaking a modern creole language. The usage of, and education in, Haitian Creole has been contentious since at least the 19th century: where some Haitians viewed modern standard French as a legacy of colonialism, Creole was maligned by francophone elites as a miseducated or poor person's French. Until the late 20th century, Haitian presidents spoke only standard French to their fellow citizens, and until the 2000s, all instruction at Haitian elementary schools was in modern standard French; a second language to most of the students. Haitian Creole contains elements from both the Romance group of Indo-European languages through its superstratum French language, as well as 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 16th and 17th centuries, 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 engagés (employed whites), gens de couleur and slaves. Singler estimates the economy shifted into sugar production in 1690, just before the French colony of Saint-Domingue was officially formed in 1697. The sugar crops needed a much larger labor force, which led to an increase in slave importation. In the 18th century an estimated 800,000 West-African individuals were enslaved and brought to Saint-Domingue. As the slave population increased, interactions between French-speaking colonists and slaves decreased. Many African slaves in French ownership were from Niger-Congo-speaking territory, and particularly from Kwa languages such as Gbe and the Central Tano languages and Bantu languages. 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 Saint‑Domingue'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 imported slave population. In contrast to the African languages, a type of classical French (français classique) and langues d'oïl (Norman, Poitevin and Saintongeais dialects, Gallo and Picard) were spoken during the 17th and 18th centuries in Saint‑Domingue, as well as in New France and French West Africa. Slaves who seldom could communicate with fellow slaves would try to learn French. With the constant importation of slaves, the language gradually became formalized and became a distinct tongue to French. The language was also picked up by the whites and became used by all those born in what is now Haiti. Haitian Creole and French have similar pronunciations and share many lexical items. In fact, over 90% of the Haitian Creole vocabulary is of French origin. 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 fréquent; however, its cognate in Haitian Creole frekan 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.