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Creole vs French in Haiti | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes  Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 9 of 16 24 August 2011 at 9:01pm | IP Logged | ||
Part of the problem is the lack of school books. I'm told the major French publishers are partly to blame -- they sell there "metropolitain" books there for next to nothing. Ostensibly a charitable move, but it discourages a native market. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| prz_ Tetraglot Senior Member Poland last.fm/user/prz_rul Joined 4859 days ago 890 posts - 1190 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Bulgarian, Croatian Studies: Slovenian, Macedonian, Persian, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Swedish, German, Italian, Armenian, Kurdish | Message 10 of 16 24 August 2011 at 9:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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Right. And if there aren't enough of teachers fluent in French, then everything is clear.
Btw, it's a kinda ironic twist of fate. In many countries people pay a world of something what majority of Haitians revolt against. Edited by prz_ on 24 August 2011 at 9:06pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| AriD2385 Groupie United States Joined 4850 days ago 44 posts - 60 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 11 of 16 24 August 2011 at 9:42pm | IP Logged | ||
Haiti being a tiny country and the US not being the biggest country are two entirely different things. I'm sure you recognize that. The logic used in your post doesn't follow from what I said. Re-read my post if necessary. Also, I could have said they should learn English, like much of the rest of the world requires for business purposes, but I didn't. French is already a part of their culture and will be beneficial to students wanting to do more. That is clear. Educated Hatians who have the best opportunities know French (and oftentimes English as well). A Hatian child who doesn't learn French will not be able to make use of schoolbooks (b/c they aren't in Creole), won't be able to read their own government's publications, and won't have access to information regarding the world around them--the world that has a lot of impact on the country. The language divide in Haiti (and other similar countries--like Morocco) only serves the purposes of entrenching the power of the upper class. People who who are actually concerned about helping Hatians rise above recognize this. If the US were of similar size and only US citizens spoke English, I would learn another language as well. I find it somewhat ironic that many people jump to learn English for exactly the practical reasons I named and yet people don't seem to take offense to that. But this is political. Suffice it to say that jumping to conclusions that people are attempting to cast slights on Haiti is unnecessary. Back to language learning. Edited by AriD2385 on 24 August 2011 at 10:08pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tritone Senior Member United States reflectionsinpo Joined 6120 days ago 246 posts - 385 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, French | Message 12 of 16 24 August 2011 at 10:44pm | IP Logged | ||
No one is saying that they shouldn't learn french to connect with the outside world. The question is if french should be used as the medium of education in Haiti...i.e teaching math and all subjects to haitian children in French. They could learn french as a second language just as well, if school instruction were in creole, and they acquired literacy in their native language first. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| AriD2385 Groupie United States Joined 4850 days ago 44 posts - 60 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 13 of 16 25 August 2011 at 12:13am | IP Logged | ||
It seems like the most pressing issue here is the availability of adequate educational materials in Creole. Given the other issues in the country right now, it's not clear that a mass effort to translate those materials is going to be undertaken. But maybe that's where folks like the language-lovers on here come in. I'm sure it could be done if some dedicated people were inclined to do it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 14 of 16 25 August 2011 at 11:45am | IP Logged | ||
Nononono. Wait a second. "People who are actually concerned about helping Haitians" -- the insinuation is that I'm not, and the (Haitian) in the article isn't either. Well I'm sorry, but you've got it back to front. They have been trying to teach the whole island French for over a century, and it hasn't worked. Rather than trying to teach the people the language of the state, they should be teaching the state the language of the people. Haiti should be a Haitian speaking nation. Haitian is the only language of all Haitians. Ignoring that does nothing to improve the country, it only serves to maintain the status quo. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| KimG Diglot Groupie Norway Joined 4977 days ago 88 posts - 104 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Portuguese, Swahili | Message 15 of 16 25 August 2011 at 3:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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Creole languages is in a odd situation, they got an tendency to be viewed as inferior, why should school kids not be taught in their mother language, the mother language of their teacher?
Imagine you guys: First schoolday, you go to school, eager, and meets learning a strange foregin language: For our example, Latin, who is equally similiar to our own languages as creole languages usually are to their parent languages. Would anyone thing that it is beneficial to receive most, if not ALL of basic schooling, History, Geography, and all, in classical Latin in our western schools, by same people as we now got as teachers? No? Imho, this sounds as an dangerous, dangerous concept, the kids could turn half literate, or even start mix french with creole, becoming halfway educated in parisian french and haiti creole, who might not make them bilingual, but half lingual. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5262 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 16 of 16 25 August 2011 at 4:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hundreds of years ago in Europe, education was meant for the elite and conducted in Latin and Greek instead of English, French and German. This served to keep the masses down. The child of a laborer or farmer faced the twin barriers of cost and language to get an education.
The Protestant Reformation came about in large part because the Church didn't allow the translation of the Bible into vernacular languages. Knowledge is power. Language is power. Putting barriers in place serves to help elites maintain that power. If everyone is educated and can read and write and express their ideas, that power is threatened. Elites don't like competition. Educating Haitian children in their own language, Creole, in a country where everyone speaks Creole and uses that language everyday is the way to a better educated populace. French should be taught as a second language along with English and Spanish. This reform would go a long way towards improving the lives of Haitians through better education and has a high benefit to cost ratio. Imagine being a seven year old English-speaking child going to your first day of school and discovering that all the teachers are instructing you in Scots or Afrikaans and you are expected to do well and to learn math and science and how to express ideas and concepts in these languages. Then imagine that your teachers are somewhat less than fluent in this foreign language themselves. The results would not be good. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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