HAITIN CREOLE LANGUAGE

              HAITIN CREOLE LANGUAGE

Haitian Creole is a French-based creole language spoken by 10–12 million people worldwide, and the only language of most Haitians. It is a creole language based largely on 18th-century French with influences from Portuguese, Spanish, English, Taíno, and West African Language . Haitian Creole emerged from contact between French settlers and African slaves during the Atlantic slave trade in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti). Haitians are the largest creole-speaking community in the world.

The usage of and education in Haitian Creole—which is not mutually intelligible with French—has been contentious since at least the 19th Century: where some Haitians saw 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 French to their fellow citizens, and until the 2000s, all instruction at Haitian elementary schools was in French, a second language to most of the students.

ETYMOLOGY:

The word creole comes from a Portuguese term that means "a person (especially a servant) raised in one's house", from Latin creare "to make, bring forth, produce, beget". It first referred to Europeans born and raised in overseas colonies, but later was used to refer also to the language.

ORIGINS:

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.

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                                                                                   M.Vishali