RESOURCES

About Haitian Creole

Haitian Creole

Haitian Creole is the official language of Haiti. Between 10 to 12 million people speak Haitian Creole as their primary language, with approximately 7 million speakers located in Haiti alone. The rest have immigrated to other countries throughout the world.

Here are all the countries and territories which have native speakers of the Haitian Creole language:

  • Haiti
  • The United States
  • France
  • The Dominican Republic
  • Cayman Islands
  • Canada
  • French Guiana
  • Puerto Rico
  • Guadeloupe

Haitian Creole features several elements of the French language and several West African languages. The language originated after West African slaves were brought to the French colony of Saint-Domingue and interacted with French-speaking colonists in the 18th century.

There are many similarities between French and Haitian Creole because over 90% of Haitian Creole vocabulary is derived from the French vocabulary. That means many of their words have similar pronunciations, making them recognizable to someone of the opposite language.

However, the grammar usage and meanings of the words are different. One of the most significant grammar differences is that Haitian Creole does not use conjugated verbs like the French language. Therefore, someone who understands French won’t necessarily understand Haitian Creole. The word meanings and conjugation rules set the two languages apart.

Contrary to popular belief, Haitian Creole is not a form of broken French or some type of French dialect. They are still two completely different languages. So even if you know how to speak French, you would still need to learn Haitian Creole to understand that language.

Reasons Why You Should Learn Haitian Creole

There are many reasons why you should start learning Haitian Creole. For instance, if you plan to live in South Florida or Haiti, you will come across Haitian Creole speakers every day. Some of them may know a little bit of English, but not all of them. It would be better for you to learn their language to bridge the communication barrier and develop a better understanding of their culture.

Do you plan to work abroad in Haiti? If so, then you can stay ahead of the workforce competition by learning Haitian Creole. Haitian employers will give top consideration to foreign applicants who know even a basic level of Haitian Creole. It will provide you with a chance to interact with actual Haitians on a more personal level.

Learning Haitian Creole Has Never Been Easier

It has never been easier to learn Haitian Creole. You no longer have to move to a Haitian Creole-speaking country or territory to learn the language. Instead, you can study Haitian Creole under the guidance of an online tutor from any location in the world.

If you have access to a computer and high-speed internet connection, you can connect with a qualified Haitian Creole tutor via the Zoom video conferencing software platform. Creole Tutors offers remote Haitian Creole tutoring services for anyone interested in learning different sections of the language or the entire language.

Some people study Haitian Creole to learn standard greetings and phrases, while others wish to become fluent speakers. Whatever you decide, Creole Tutors makes it easy for you to learn and understand Haitian Creole. The Zoom-based tutoring sessions allow you to have a one-on-one interaction with your tutor. They will give you their undivided attention as you practice your pronunciation and grammar out loud.

Zoom courses are structured in an organized manner. The lessons are broken up into the following categories:

  • Alphabet
  • Vocabulary
  • Verbs
  • Basic Questions
  • Phrases
  • Dialects

Since you don’t have to conjugate verbs, it creates less confusion when using verbs in a sentence. But it still takes time and patience to learn them and all the other elements of the Haitian Creole language. Your tutors will give you direct lessons and quizzes on the material as you progress through each course.

Most students can learn the basics of Haitian Creole after studying it with a tutor for a couple of weeks. The amount of time it takes to become fluent depends on how many tutoring sessions you’d like to have. If you study Haitian Creole every day, you could achieve standard fluency within a couple of months.

How Zoom-based Tutoring Sessions Work 

Zoom video conference calls can take place on a computer or mobile device. Just download the Zoom software from the internet for free onto your preferred device. When you make an appointment with a tutor from Creole Tutors, they will send you a communication request through Zoom on the date and time that you specified.

Once you accept their request, you and the tutor will be able to see each other on video through the cameras of your devices. More importantly, you’ll be able to hear each other speak out loud. It will be as if the two of you are together in person. 

Group Learning vs. One-on-One Learning 

Creole Tutors can offer you group learning or one-on-one tutoring sessions via Zoom. The difference pertains to how many students are in the session simultaneously. Group tutoring sessions have several different students logged into the same session on Zoom. The students are grouped according to their Haitian Creole proficiency level and age range.

Group sessions are arranged into the following age groups:

  • 4-7
  • 8-12
  • 13-18
  • 18 & up

One-on-one tutoring sessions have no other students in them. It will be just you and the tutor directly communicating with each other the entire time. These particular sessions have a higher cost, but they also offer higher rewards. A one-on-one session gives you more time to practice your Haitian Creole with the tutor. You don’t have to wait on other students to receive attention from the tutor. Instead, you will receive 100% of the attention.

Learn at Your Own Pace

Tutors are not the same as school teachers. They don’t expect you to follow a curriculum where you have to learn a certain amount of Haitian Creole by a particular date. You have the freedom to learn Haitian Creole at your own pace. It doesn’t matter how much of the material you remember from each session. Failing a quiz doesn’t get you a bad grade. It simply lets the tutor know what you need to keep studying.

Feel free to take as long as you want on the lessons. Our tutors are always here to guide you along the way. Learn whenever and wherever it is most convenient for you.

Get Started Today 

It is easy to get started with your first Haitian Creole lesson. Here are the four basic steps involved:

  1. Sign up to become a student of Creole Tutors and create your online account.
  1. Once the account is created, you’ll have access to an appointment scheduler. Please specify whether you want it to be a group session or a one-on-one session.
  1. If you choose a group session, you’ll be asked to select the student’s age range. That way, the Zoom sessions will have students who are all within the same age range.
  1. Choose the appropriate language proficiency level and the specific date and time for your first tutoring session on Zoom.

Do you see how easy it is to get started? Creole Tutors makes it fast and straightforward to connect with qualified Haitian Creole tutors from around the world. All our tutors have fluency in both Haitian Creole and English. So, you can ask questions in English if you don’t understand the lessons, and the tutor will respond in English.

If you continue studying Haitian Creole with our tutors, you will eventually get to a point where you can speak Haitian Creole in a normal conversation. Whether or not you get to this level depends on your goals for learning this fascinating language.

Contact us

During the Atlantic slave trade at Saint-Domingue, now Haiti, the Haitian Creole language developed. The language has a French-based vocabulary and grammar and sentence structure from West African languages. Both Haitian Creole and French are official languages in Haiti. Still, the French language is more prestigious, especially in urban areas.

Sometimes, Haitian Creole is referred to as broken French because of its similarities with the French language. However, there are significant differences in their pronunciation, grammatical structure, and pragmatics.

Nouns

Unlike French, there is no grammatical gender in Creole grammar, and pluralization is indicated by suffixing –yo to the primary word. Articles and adjectives do not inflect based on the main noun; indefinite articles precede nouns, and definite articles follow nouns.

For example,

                My bike:  In Haitian Creole, it would be bekan mwen

   In French, it would be ma becane

My bikes:  In Haitian Creole, would be bekan mwen yo

                     In French, it would be mes becanes

Pronouns

There are six pronouns for the first, second, and third person in the French language, with both singular and plural versions. In Haitian Creole, there is no distinction between personal, possessive, direct, and indirect pronouns.

For example,

                I & me: in Haitian Creole, is mwen

                                In French, is je, moi

                You:       In Haitian Creole, is ou

                               In French, is tu, toi, and vous (plural)

Possessive Pronouns

In French, there is a clear distinction between masculine, feminine, and plural possessive pronouns. In contrast, there is no difference between masculine and feminine pronouns in Haitian Creole. Also, plural pronouns add –yo at the end of the word.

For example:

                Mine: In Haitian Creole, is pa mwen a

                            In French, is le mien (masculine) and la mienne (feminine)

                Yours: In Haitian Creole, is pa ou yo

                             In French, is les tiens (masculine) and les tiennes (feminine)

Verbs

Although many Haitian Creole and French verbs are the same in spoken word, there is no subject-verb agreement in Creole. Instead, there’s a system of markers that indicate tense by preceding the verb.

For example:

                He goes to work in the morning: in Haitian Creole, is li ale travay nan maten

                                                                                  In French, is il va au travail le matin

                I make food: in Haitian Creole, it is mwen fe manje

                                         In French, is je fais a manger

Conclusively,

Haitian Creole is similar to French in vocabulary but different in grammar and pragmatics. The significant differences indicate that Haitian Creole is a language in its own right.

Haitian Creole, also known as Kreyole ayisyen is a language common to Haiti’s population and spoken in several places, including the Bahamas, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Guadeloupe, Cayman Islands, Canada, France, and the U.S.

Haitian Creole originated during the Atlantic slave trade in Saint-Domingue, now known as Haiti. It is often referred to as broken French because it is similar to the French language but has an African language structure like Wolof and Fon. The language started with French settlers and slaves from West Africa working on plantations. Although Haitian Creole uses borrowed words from English and Spanish, it is a language in its own right; it has a unique pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and pragmatics.

Both French and Haitian Creole are official languages of Haiti, but Creole has less prestige than French. Urban schools, print media, and televisions are more French inclined. Nevertheless, expatriate Haitian communities use more of Creole, especially in elementary and secondary schools

There are three major Haitian Creole dialects based on geographical location, and there are Haitians that speak more than one. The sound system of each dialect differs; the speech of urban dwellers is more similar to French than the rural dwellers. These dialects are:

  • Central dialect: majorly spoken in the capital of Haiti, which is Port-au-Prince
  • Northern dialect: majorly spoken in the second-largest city in Haiti, which is Cap-Haitien
  • Southern dialect: majorly spoken in the Cayes area in the south part of Haiti.

Structure and Grammar

Although Haitian Creole has its roots in French, they are different in structure and grammar. Unlike French, the suffix –yo indicates plurals, definite articles follow a noun, and indefinite articles precede a noun. In French, pronouns are distinct for the first, second, and third person, and they are also different for singulars and plurals. In contrast, Haitian Creole has no clear distinctions in pronouns.

Haitian Creole does not have a subject-verb agreement in verb usage, but it uses markers to indicate tenses.

In Conclusion,

The Haitian Creole has origins in French and West African languages. Although it one of the official languages in Haiti, it is not as prestigious as French. However, it is widely spoken in expatriate communities in the Bahamas, Canada, Dominican Republic, and so much more. Although it is referred to as broken French, Haitian Creole has a unique structure, pronunciation, and grammar that makes it a standard language.

Haitian Creole is normally referred to as Creole. It is a language that’s spoken by over 12 million people across the globe. Furthermore, it’s also one of the two official languages of Haiti where the majority of the population made it their native language.

Its vocabulary is generally taken from phonetic 18th-century French, the sentence structure and its grammar is that of a West Africa language, most especially the Igbo language and the Fon language. The language also has influences from English, Taino, Spanish, Portuguese and other West African languages. 

A poem was the first documented written text in Haitian Creole which appeared in 1757. Notwithstanding, attempts were not made until the mid-19th century by President Élie Lescot to standardize the language, which was later made an official Haitian language in the Constitution of 1987.

The language is based on the African languages and French spoken by the slaves brought to work on plantations from West Africa. It is usually described wrongly as broken French or French dialect. Meanwhile, it is a language in its own right with its own grammar, pragmatics, pronunciation and vocabulary.

When Did Haitian Creole Become an Official Language?

In the 17th century, before the arrival of the French colonists on the island of Hispaniola, the main language of Haiti and also the rest of the Caribbean Islands was Taino. Haitian Creole language came into view from contact between the enslaved Africans and the French settlers in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (now called Haiti) during the Atlantic slave trade.

If you ever get to find yourself in the country of Haiti, going through the streets of Cap-Haïtien or Port-au-Prince, you might be greeted with the phrase “Alo” or “Bonjou”, both are mutual greetings in Haitian Creole. Haitian Creole is a major language spoken in the whole of the country of Haiti.

Modern Day Usage of Haitian Creole Language 

Since the 19th century, the usage of education in Haitian Creole has been combative. Creole was traduced by the francophone as an uneducated person’s French while some Haitians see French as a legacy of colonialism.

An attempt was made by the Bernard Reform in 1978 to introduce the use of Haitian Creole in the early primary school but was not successful. In the modern-day, many of the public students are using Haitian Creole language to teach Haitian children who are from families where French is not spoken in their home.

Haitian presidents spoke only standard French to their fellow citizens during the late 20th century and until the 2000s, all instructions given at Haitian elementary schools were in modern standard French which becomes a second language to virtually all their students.

Although, both Haitian Creole and French are official languages in Haiti but the French language is seen as a higher class language while Haitian Creole is seen as a lower-class language. In the history of Haiti, the French language is used in the educational system to teach students, as they see it as a language of learning.

Why Learn Haitian Creole

Why learn Haitian Creole when there are so many exotic languages out there? In other words, what makes Haitian Creole special and unique? Does it offer certain benefits that other languages don’t? In this article, we’ll answer these questions and more, on a journey to learn why you should learn Haitian Creole in this day and age.

Learning a new language is an exciting and perilous journey, one peppered with surprises, joys, irritable moments, but above all, novelty. The same can be said about Haitian Creole, a language with a unique culture whose origins reflect the hardiness and steadfast nature of a great people.

Here are the top reasons why you should learn Haitian Creole right now:

  • Professional Benefits

Think about it – the more a language is used, the more likely it is for companies to demand speakers of that language. By comparison, Haitian Creole is the third most spoken language in Florida at the moment. Back at the 2000 census, foreign-born Haitians numbered 182,224 in Florida, equal to 43.5% of all total foreign-born Haitians in the United States.

That number has been growing constantly ever since, and at the 2019 census, Florida had 533,409 Haitians living there. In the entire United States, there were a whopping 1,084,055 Haitians. That’s over a million Haitians who are speaking Creole as their native language. Some of them are very bad at English, and so companies needed to update their linguistic repertoire to assist these people any way they can.

Haitian is also spoken in France, Canada, the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Guadeloupe, the Cayman Islands, and the French Guiana. Creole is native to some of these countries, so a large majority of the residents will speak only in Creole. Imagine the professional opportunities waiting for you there if you knew Haitian Creole!

As a prospective student thinking about obtaining an edge in the workplace, Haitian Creole is an excellent bilingual choice. You can elevate your professional status both locally and abroad with this language. Companies working in the education, translation, and even the government sector are in constant demand of bilingual Haitian speakers, so the opportunities are ripe for the taking.

  • Social Involvement

If you’re the type who wants to make a difference in society, then learning Haitian Creole can be a stepping stone to that goal. While French and Creole are both spoken in Haitian and other countries, French isn’t spoken by everyone. Creole, on the other hand, is a more familiar language to native Haitians, one spoken by everyone, regardless of their academic upbringing.

The Haitian community in the US and not only need help through social programs and social involvement. UCV, anthropology, or pre-med students will need to learn Haitian Creole as well when attending outreach activities in Haitian villages. These three domains often organize such programs in Creole-speaking locations throughout the world.

Knowing Haitian Creole will put you in a unique position of interaction with the native Haitian population. While your peers may unsuccessfully try to communicate in French or English, you’ll have an easy time expressing yourself and helping wherever you can. People appreciate when others make an effort to learn their native language, and the same goes for Haitians.

  • Access To the Haitian Culture

It’s a given that, if you know Haitian Creole, you’ll have instant access to all the wonders of Haitian culture. This culture is an eclectic mix of Taino, European, and African elements, and it’s often showcased in music, religion, and language. Haiti has a Carnival season, similar to the Mardi Gras celebration in New Orleans, for instance.

It’s called “Kye Marn”, and it lasts for several weeks every year, and it’s held in Port-au-Prince, but other locations like Aux Cayes and Jacmel have smaller celebrations of the carnival. Knowing Creole will put you on the first seat during this celebratory period in Haiti where vivid colors, striking costumes, and good music are just a few of the many intriguing elements there.

Aside from carnivals and music, Haitian culture has another essential element to it, and that is art. Painting, to be more exact, took on a unique form in Haiti, thanks to the blend between art and religion. The most popular form of painting in Haiti takes on the naïve style, where mostly everyone can paint in this style.

Some art critics have argued that the Haitian naïve painting style relies on the lack of formal art education and discipline. We say that it perfectly incorporates the spirit of a people and their rich history, as well as their attitude when faced with overwhelming odds. Colorful images and vividly-pictured paintings are the centerpieces of the Haitian naïve painting style.

To discover the Haitian culture and many of its subcultures, you should know the Creole language. Without it, you can’t access the subtle details described by word of mouth or in Creole books. The residents of Haiti will be happy to tell stories of their culture, with descriptions of painting, music, fashion style, and more.

  • Phonetic Language

Creole is a phonetic language, which means the writing perfectly corresponds to the spoken part. Moreover, the language has no conjugations like Spanish, which makes things a whole lot easier. Haitian Creole is a bit similar to French and so French speakers will find it considerably easier to learn Creole.

The other elements of the language are vocabulary, alphabet, dialects, phrases, verbs, and basic questions. They’re easy to learn if you have a tutor on hand, as each category is aptly separated from the others and intuitive on its own. Being a phonetic language, Haitian language has no complexity leap when moving from sounds to symbols, from speaking to writing.

Once you learn how to speak the language, you’ll also know how to write, more or less. The work you put in to learn Haitian Creole is considerably less compared to other languages, even international ones. Haitian verbs, for instance, are very similar to French verbs when it comes to sounding. Creole doesn’t impose a subject-verb agreement, though.

Instead, there are specific markers that will indicate the tense when placed in its appropriate place. There are many such examples where Haitian Creole is different yet easier to learn than French and other languages. Most people will have an easy time learning Haitian Creole, though. Its structure is intuitive and the grammatical, phonological, and pragmatical aspects are easy to learn as well.

  • Haitian Creole is Blooming Worldwide

Unlike most of the other Creole languages that are on the brink of linguistic extinction, Haitian Creole couldn’t be further from that point. It is quickly becoming an international phenomenon, attracting countless people to Haiti, its culture, history, and linguistic marvels.

The language is spoken by millions of people worldwide, and corporations are starting to up the ante on professional requirements. Southeastern and southwestern Florida in the US are two of the places in the world with high concentrations of Haitian people. Everyone has a high demand for Haitian Creole here.

In an attempt to reach the Haitian communities living in the US, government agencies have started producing various public service announcements in Haitian Creole. For instance, the Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport has a Haitian Creole display at a car rental counter.

The Miami-Dade County in Florida officially sends its paper communications in English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole, emphasizing the growing demand for Haitian Creole throughout the county. In Boston, the subway system and hospitals post announcements in English and Haitian Creole.

The Universities of Florida, Massachusetts Boston, and Florida International University provide courses and seminars at the jointly-organized Haitian Creole Summer Institute. Many of the major universities across the country have begun offering Haitian Creole courses, in fact.

Combine the high demand with the lack of learning difficulty, and you get a unique linguistic opportunity that everyone should grasp. It’s a great idea to consider learning Creole thanks to its growing popularity and high professional demand. The fact that is very easy to learn only makes it more worthwhile, don’t you think so?

Conclusion

Haitian Creole is the third most spoken language in Florida at this moment. We’ve said this before, and we’ll say it again – Haitian Creole is a language that keeps growing in demand and popularity. There are more and more Haitian communities across the US, with most of them living in Florida.

The language itself has increased in popularity thanks to the spirited nature of the Haitian people. They’re very optimistic and colorful people filled with a vibrant and steadfast soul. Nothing takes them down as they always stand back up, and this personality has brought them all over the world, including the United States.

Learning Haitian Creole has almost become synonymous with achieving success in some domains. If you ignore this opportunity to pass you by, you may not get a better chance. Learning Haitian Creole will place you at the very center of a linguistic, social, professional, and cultural revolution, one dependent on the language itself!

LEARN WITH US

TUTOR FOR US

ABOUT US

FOLLOW US