Language in Haiti

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Language in Haiti

Language is a major issue in Haiti. Our language is both one of our

greatest belongings and one of our greatest baggages. On one hand, it

represents the mainstay of our culture, the unique pathway to our true

nature; on the other, it sometimes restricts and casts us out by putting us

in a box and preventing us from accessing two prime universal bases of

knowledge and culture: French and English. Our people, in Haiti and

throughout the world, sometimes need to use Creole, French, and English

at different times, in different places, to respond to different needs. Creole

as mainstay and restriction is Haiti’s current and, most likely, our future

reality, and I believe that Creole should be valued and fully integrated in

the educational system in Haiti.

The two official languages of Haiti are French and Creole. All Haitians

speak Creole, while only a very small part of the population can be considered

bilingual in French and Creole. Traditionally, the two languages

served different functions, with Creole being the informal everyday language

of all the people, regardless of the social class, and French considered

as the language of formality used in situations such as newspapers, schools,

the law and the courts, and official documents and decrees. Nevertheless,

because the great majority of Haitians only speak Creole, many efforts have

been made in recent years to expand its usage.

A language is conventionally composed of arbitrary signals such as voice

sounds, gestures, and written symbols; such a system uses its own rules for

combining its components, which makes every language unique. Haitian

Creole highly relies on proverbs, metaphors, and sublime imagery. Here are

a few of these pro...

... middle of paper ...

...ole, and I wish to take part in it.

Works Cited

Baldwin, James. “If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?” The

Composition of Our “Selves.” 2nd ed. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt. 2000. 123–6.

Curtis, Marcia. Preface. The Composition of Our “Selves.” 2nd ed. Dubuque, Iowa:

Kendall/Hunt, 2000. 103–9.

Jordan, June. “Nobody Mean More to Me Than You.” The Composition of Our “Selves.”

2nd ed. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt. 2000. 157–163.

Katz, Stacey. “Near-Native Speakers in the Foreign-Language Classroom: The Case of

Haitian Immigrant Students”. The Sociolinguistics of Foreign-Language Classrooms.

EBSCO. 2003. 08 Nov. 2005 http://search.epnet.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=

eric&an=ED481793.

White, Michael and David Epston. “Story, Knowledge, and Power”. The Composition of

Our “Selves.” 2nd ed. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt, 2000. 64–77.

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