Language in Haiti Essay -- Linguistics

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... ...ole, and I wish to take part in it. Works Cited Baldwin, James. â€Å"If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?† The Composition of Our â€Å"Selves.† 2nd ed. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt. 2000. 123–6. Curtis, Marcia. Preface. The Composition of Our â€Å"Selves.† 2nd ed. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt, 2000. 103–9. Jordan, June. â€Å"Nobody Mean More to Me Than You.† The Composition of Our â€Å"Selves.† 2nd ed. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt. 2000. 157–163. Katz, Stacey. â€Å"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. â€Å"Story, Knowledge, and Power†. The Composition of Our â€Å"Selves.† 2nd ed. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt, 2000. 64–77.