Talk:Haitian Creole

order of subtopics

shouldn't the section about "plural of nouns" come after the one about "definite articles?" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.187.207.205 (talk) 20:01, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

chiklét

isnt it possible that this term originates from spanish chicle rather than the brand name (which got its name from spanish) especially if the t is silent like in french ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.72.241.193 (talk) 12:40, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I would concur that the word is derived from chicle, the traditional polymer that chewing gum is/was made from, rather than backformed from the derived brand name Chiclets. Barring any cultural evidence to the contrary, I back that theory.

71.241.78.140 (talk) 10:41, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

comment

Isaac Crumm I have been looking at wikipedia for quite some time, but I just joined recently. I think this particular page is pretty awesome. I added a bunch of those phrases and grammar yesterday. Thanks to whoever made it real neat and presentable; I am still trying to get a hang of the markup commands. I haven't been much in the Haitian-Creole circles for quite some time, so I may be kind of old on the spelling, and my computer currently can't use the accent marks.

Does anyone know of Bryant Freeman- has he published anything new recently (last 10 years)? Thanks.

Thanks to everyone; it looks like this page is really coming along.

The accents were added.Fågelina 22:30, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Dialect

The article says "There are two dialects: Fablas and Plateau." Could we get some more info on these? There is nothing written in the stubs linked. I have never heard these terms used by Haitians (doesn't mean they don't use them, just I don't hear them), but I frequently hear "kapwaz" used to describe the Cap Haitian mode of speech. Any comments?

Jargon

Gen ge moun gou ki gi vle ge fe ge yon go ba ga gay gay nan gan ja ga gon gon? Maybe it will be interesting.

Random Question

Should Haiti be considered a Latin American country? This is a topic on the Latin American talk page. I don't want to bring the debate here, but was just curious what the users here thought.

Classifications are always arbitrary unless one specifies a purpose. So the real question is: what is the purpose of classifying countries into "Latin American" and "not Latin American"? Once you answer this question, the answer to your question will probably be obvious. Jorge Stolfi 19:55, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

PS. Remember to sign your entries with "~~~~" so that readers can tell one message from another. Jorge Stolfi 20:13, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

That seems like a very reasonable answer. Many different factions are arguing about it on the Latin America page. Isaac Crumm 08:03, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Fun fact: Half jokingly, I once announced to a group of Canadians that I had just spent some time in Quebec and had come to the conclusion that it is a Latin American country. That got a good laugh out of them. A notably uncomfortable laugh. Your mileage may vary. Sean M. Burke (talk) 05:57, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

question

* zwazo - oiseau [(le)s oiseaux] - bird

Shouldn't that be le(s) oiseaux? 66.32.97.68 19:16, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Nope. The point of the parentheses was that the first z in zwazo comes from the s in les. Since the first part of les has been left out of the Creole word, they put it in parentheses. (In any case, if there were no final s and the French word were singular, it would not be *le oiseaux but l'oiseau – however, that's irrelevant to Creole, which takes zwazo from the French plural...) QuartierLatin1968 09:23, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Actually, on second glance, scratch what I said, I don't know why they decided to put the part that is incorporated into the Creole in parentheses, for example in (la) lune. Seems weird. Can we maybe take out the parentheses in (la)? QuartierLatin1968 09:28, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I need help with some information for the infobox

Are there any organizations that regulate this language? what are the ISO codes for this language? Revolución 04:39, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

In addition to the two codes listed already, HT states that "ht" is the ISO 639 alpha-2 code for this language. That would explain why the Haitian Creole Wikipedia is at ht.wikipedia.org.

Yes, it's "ht". I'm the person who registered it with ISO, in 2003: [[1]]. And in Internet use, two-letter codes (where available) take precedence over three-letter codes. Sean M. Burke (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 05:32, 2 March 2010 (UTC).

sample phrase pronunciations

I have some doubt that Creole uses the a sound as much as the IPA pronunciations make it seem, but I know nothing of Creole, and french does use it.

--Lee S. Svoboda 21:59, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Creole ʁ?

I edited the IPA so that it represents the French uvular /ʁ/ more accuately, but is the r for Haitian Creole an alveolar trill or is it also uvular?

• I don't believe it exists. I have never heard Haitian Creole spoken with an uvular trill and I've toured the country extensively. In fact, I believe it is one of those things that, to the average Haitian, sounds "Frenchy" and therefore snobbish/condescending. Braidedheadman 18:09, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

ʁ

It does existe in creole as well do the french sounds (oe, eu etc.) people forget there is more than one way to pronounce things in creole. Accents vary in Haiti so not everyone pronounces everything the same.

Who's your daddy?

Why is this included in the list of phrases? :: Salvo (talk) 08:26, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

No idea. Possibly it is meant as a question directed at a child and nothing else? Kinda makes you chuckle though, doenit...  ;] //Big Adamsky 15:20, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

More varied vocabulary sample needed

The words in the sample vocabulary seem to have been picked for the purpose of showing the derivation from French. But presumably the language has words borrowed from other sources, or made up (onomatopoeias etc.) It would be nice to include examples of those words too. Jorge Stolfi 10:55, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Good point, Some were added. It appears though that maybe not all of them are not of French origin. More in this dept would be appreciated.

Capitalization of Aysiyen

I believe that in French orthography the derivatives of proper nouns are not capitalized, is that correct? What is the custom in Haitian Creole? In particular, should we write Aysiyen or aysiyen? Jorge Stolfi 10:58, 21 February 2006 (UTC)</nowiki>

—Haitian Creole follows the French language - it is not capitalized "ayisyen"Fågelina 21:36, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Fek

hello, i was wondering about the origin of this word. It is also used in Mauritian Creole (e.g. Mo fek fer sa... I just did that) but we do not know how or where it comes from. MC does not have much West-African influence except for an archaic word no longer used{Wati-wale(Wolof)..par ci par la(French)..by here by there}. Anybody with any info? Domsta333 09:01, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

The French Wikipedia says it comes from the French phrase "ne faire que...". --201.218.24.21 01:53, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Spelling

Someone just (as in today) changed the spelling of many of the words in the article. I think it would be good if they put some comments here in the discussion page about it. How is the uniformity of the spelling these days? The changes made- are they some kind of standard, or are they simply the way that particular person thinks they ought to be written? Isaac Crumm 07:17, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

While I'm generally a fan of including diacritical marks where appropriate in names of places, I have never seen the diaeresis on the word Haitian when used in English. It seems like the change may have been well-intentioned but incorrect. :: Salvo (talk) 00:25, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

It does look that way. A lot of the links on the politics of Haiti page are now dead, because they're all pointing to articles named "Haïtian senate election" or whatever. Fact is, in French and Creole, aï and ayi represent two syllables, whereas in English, the ai is just a diphthong (one syllable), which means there's no more reason for a diaeresis than there would be in "Jamaica". (And for the record, I agree with Salvo in usually preferring to see the diacritics in non-English names!) QuartierLatin1968 22:34, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Since Kharker has not backed up her/his spelling changes with any sort of explanation, either here or on her/his talk page, I'm going to move the article back to the version without the diaeresis.  :: Salvo (talk) 06:13, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Pronouns

Someone recently added "vou" to the list of pronouns, should it be there? If someone is really speaking Creole, is "vou" used? Isaac Crumm 01:38, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

• I've heard it used sometimes in the Creole of the French Antilles (Guadeloupe and Martinique), but I don't remember ever hearing it in Haitian Creole. (IANAE)
• It's a "Frenchy" plural form of "you". You might hear it in/around the capital, particularly in Petionville, Delmas, and other areas where people consider themselves "more educated", especially among the Mulato and upper-class. Hence, its use is considered somewhat snobbish and condescending by most Haitians. "Nou" is more appropriate in casual conversation. Braidedheadman 17:56, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
• Vou is not snobbish, it is polite. People have the misconsception that haitians hate anything french. That is untrue and a misrepresentation of our people. Terms differ depending on region for example some people use zot intead of yo and some vou instead of ou. Plus ou is vou without the v

Verbs section

The verbs section—particularly the examples of conjugation—seems ill-formatted. I’m personally not quite sure how it should be reformatted, so I tagged it with a clean-up notice. --Joshua 23:32, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

"Sounds and spellings" and "Lexicon" sections need work

"Sounds and spellings" needs more information, e.g. on ò and ch. "Lexicon" needs to have several of the IPA pronunciations filled in. 24.159.255.29 23:59, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

"Goodfatherhood"? What's the source of this?

Is it ozetazini or etazini?

24.159.255.29 23:59, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

• Ozetazini is correct, (phonetically) from the French, "Aux États-Unis (d'Amérique)". "Etazini" is also correct and is similar in use to "The United States" vs. "The States" in English. Braidedheadman 17:28, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

—"ozetazini" = in/to the United States, comes from French "aux États Unis" and "etazini" = United States, comes from French "États Unis." Nothing upset me more to see "Ozetazini" writen with a capitalized "O" as if it was the official country name.Fågelina 20:50, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• But that is in fact just what it is; the official name, in Creole, for the country. Capitalizing the "O" is perfectly good grammar as a result. When you say "Ozetazini" to a Haitian, they do not think, "To the United States." They interpret it for what it is in Creole, a noun labeling a country. For example, "M'ap ale Ozetazini," translated correctly means, "I am going to go to the United States." It does not mean "I am going to go to the to the United States." This is an example of where knowlege of French vocabulary and gramatical structure can interfere with correctly interpreting/understanding Haitian Creole. Braidedheadman 17:44, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

I have to disagree with this. Creole speakers use "ozetazini" to mean exactly that: to the United States. The sentence "M ale ozetazini" means "I am going to the United States," and "Etazini se yon gran peyi" means "The United States is a great country." I have never heard a Creole speaker use "Ozetazini" to mean the name of the country, and I lived in Haiti for years. Cdeutsch 12:19, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Ozetazini and Ezetazini are the same word just pronounced differently. Creole is not an overly complicated language but you guys seem to make it seem so.

Copula

I put some comments on the copula talk page regarding Haitian Creole. I think they are worth looking at and discussing (there) to enhance that article, and the stature of Haitian Creole in that article Isaac Crumm 20:32, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Recent Changes

Well, this goes for everyone, but today, specifically for 71.124.156.23, please discuss before making wholesale changes, and changes ought to be kept uniform with the way the language is described in the article (definite article = la, not la)Isaac Crumm 01:57, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Corrections

I've noticed a couple of items that I believe need to be examined for correctness. I'll list them below with what corrections I think should be made:

• In the "To know" verb category, the treatment of "konnen" and "konn" as two separate words, in form and definition, is incorrect. "Konn" is the contracted form of "konnen" and as such they share identical meaning. "Konnen (konn)" comes from the French verb "Connaitre", which means "to know of (someone/something)", "to have experience in (some activity)", "to be familiar with (some concept)", etc. For example, "Mwen Konnen Jean-Paul / I know Jean-Paul," and "Mwen konn pale kreyòl / I know how to speak Creole." The second verb form of "to know" that the original author was probably referring to is "se", in Creole, from the French verb "savoir", which means "to know (something)", as in, "Mwen se nimewo telefon mwen pa kè / I know my telephone number by heart," and, "Li se kreyòl / She knows Creole." Note that the verb "se / to know" can be confused with the verb "se / to be" in sentances such as these, especially if instead of saying "Creole" in the last example, one says, "Li se Haitian / She knows Haitian." :P Braidedheadman 19:19, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
• I'll continue to add to this topic as time permits. If you choose to do so, please respond with bulleted indentations (:*) below each point that I raise in order to keep this tidy. Cheers.

I would have to disagree with what you are trying to say about "to know," I have never heard "se" to mean "savoir" except if one is speaking in a Frency way. We need to hear more opinions on the konnen vs. konn vs. se issue. Please, anybody? Isaac Crumm 22:49, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

That makes two of us: I've never heard a Creole speaker use "se" to mean "to know." --Cdeutsch 12:22, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

While reading the article, I found two points that looked to me like inconsistencies if I didn’t get it wrong: 1. Lexikon: why does the text contain „lalin“, but the table “lin” for ‘moon’? 2. “In some orthographic representations of Haitian Creole, <r> is used for both /ɣ/ and /w/, since /ɣ/ only occurs before front vowels and /w/ before back vowels. However, some modern orthographies use both <r> and <w> since the difference is phonemic.” Why should the difference be phonemic? If I understand this explanation correctly, they are in complementary distribution? 3. Finally, one interesting question the answer to which might be included into the article: what’s the etymology of the plural marker <yo>? G Purevdorj (talk) 23:12, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

"Sounds and Spellings"

Wouldn't it be more linguistically correct and more synergetic with other language articles to call this section "Phonology and Orthography"?

Yes, agreed. Sean M. Burke (talk) 05:37, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Haitian French versus Haitian Creole

I'm under the impression that there is a distinction between Haitian French and Haitian Creole, but I'm not an expert on this. Gringo300 00:04, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, there is no such thing as Haitian French, it's just regular French.Cakechild (talk) 03:02, 31 October 2008 (UTC)CakechildCakechild (talk) 03:02, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Yon

Someone put "yon" in front of a bunch of the nouns on the word list. I think it is very unnecessary. Anyone have any thoughts? Isaac Crumm 20:59, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Names

Someone changed some of the names from French spelling to a phonetic Kreyol like spelling. Personally, I have never seen a Haitian spell their name in this manner. I have always seen the French preserved. What is the current practice/opinion on this? Remember, Wikipedia is supposed to be descriptive not prescriptive.Isaac Crumm 20:59, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Mwa

Does mwa mean "me" (French moi)? If so, this would be a good word to add to the table, as it's an excellent example of the Africanized spelling found in Kreyol. Badagnani 01:44, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

"Mwa" is not a Haitian Creole word. "Mwen" (sometimes just "m")in Haitian Creole means the first person singular in all cases. (I/Je Me/Moi My/Mine/Mon/Ma and Me- this is not really a one for one correlation as all these cases are not necessarily used in Haitian Creole, but "mwen"fulfills all these same roles. Isaac Crumm 01:40, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

---from le Créole - "Moi" & "Mwen" are the same word "mwen" is just moi being said with a Haitian accent —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.61.12.177 (talk) 23:38, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I think "Mwa" is used in HC. It usually means Month, as in twa mwa, meaning three month. —Preceding unsigned comment added by AhadOnLine (talk • contribs) 13:51, August 24, 2007 (UTC)

I was reading an Edo dictionary (Edo is a language mainly spoken in today's Nigeria) and they use 'Mwen' to say 'Me'--you can check it out on the internet, I'm sure--as for 'Nou' for You plural; I'm sure it is related to Jamaicans 'Unu', which can be traced back to the Igbo, 'Unu' or 'Una', also mainly spoken in Nigeria.

Sanka Tulasie___________ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.99.205.109 (talk) 21:03, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

---from le Créole - "Moi" & "Mwen" are the same word "mwen" is just moi being said with a Haitian accent —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.61.12.177 (talk) 23:42, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

It might be worth noting that [mwa] «moi» is merely Modern Standard French for "me". In Colloquial Quebec French even now, it's [mwe]. It's reasonable to suppose that it was still [mwe] in many 18th century dialects from all over France-- and we should expect that Kreyòl's original lexifier was French from a whole spectrum of dialects; I doubt anyone was insisting that slaves be spoken to only in Parisian. Sean M. Burke (talk) 06:12, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Use of Expressions

The entry for Haitian Creole is very good. In my opinion it gives a clear and useful introduction to the language. However, being Haitian, I would like to point out that speaking Creole also means using and understanding a significant number of expressions or idioms. It is mentioned in the entry that there is a Creole dictionary. In fact, i've seen a few different, but equally useful, ones and they all contain a section dedicated to expressions. From my own experiences, i have noticed that without these expressions, of which the dictionaries only provide a subset, certain ideas cannot be fully communicated. This is aggravated by the fact that many of them are quite difficult to translate. I hope you consider this and continue the good work so that your article on Haitian Creole can become even more thorough. --65.94.172.242 06:55, 25 May 2007 (UTC)Fabrice Durocher

Interintelligibility with French

Is it interintelligible with french? if so,it should be noted in this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.78.237.13 (talk) 16:17, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't know, what do you all think? Is it? Isaac Crumm 23:38, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

We can't say that haitian creole is interintelligible with french. Even if written haitian creole can sometime be understood by a french speaking person, it's really different for oral haitian creole. I say that because i'm from Guadeloupe (French West Indies), and we have a lot of haitian coming (illegaly) from haiti. As they come from a very poor part of the population, they do not speak and do not understand french at all. But, and it can be mentioned, they understand Guadeloupean/Martiniquese creole and can have dialogue with Guadeloupean/Martiniquese creole speaking persons. This is just a personal experience. 193.251.75.121 20:10, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Thats because the synthax is West African--which is why English West Indian creole shares the same form, although the basiolects are different. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.99.205.109 (talk) 21:05, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Presentation for College class

I am doing a presentation on Haiti. I have got to know "key phrases" such as --- Where can I get something to eat? Where can I find a hotel or place to sleep? Where is the restroom? Hi and bye. And any other thing a tourist may want to know while visiting Haiti. I am representing a Touist Company wanting to make the customers dreams come true visiting Haiti. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.255.207.169 (talk) 00:10, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

English expressions in Haitian Creole

Is it really necessary to say that "fé back" and "napkin" pushed out original creole words? The idea of an "original" creole language is problematic to begin with, and the fact that the "original" lexical items are not identified suggests to me that the author of this section is more interested in expressing hostility to English than in providing factual information. Words are spoken by people--they do not invade a group's vocabulary of their own accord, and language is not a zero sum game anyway. I'm deleting the phrase in question, and referring its author to the wikipedia page entitled "creole languages" Cthulhu1234 (talk) 03:03, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Words derived from African languages

Are there any HC words that can be traced back to African languages? If so, we should add a section on this. Badagnani (talk) 03:11, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Very, very few, if any. The African influence in HC is mostly present in the syntax.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 21:49, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Haitian words of African origin

• Anasi (from Asante ananse) n. a spider
• Boco (from Fongbe bokono) n. a practitioner of black magic
• Marasa (from Kikongo mabasa) n. twins
• chouc (from fulani chuk) v. to poke
• zombi (from Kikongo nzumbi) n. a ghost,

Examples

It might be helpful to give French translations of the examples such as "Li se frè mwen" is "Il est mon frère". --81.129.142.136 (talk) 11:47, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

One of these days, I hope to maintenance this article so that it parallels the articles of other languages. Right now it's pretty much a big depository of facts about the language. I don't know what place French has in this article. Adding examples like "C'est mon frère" only makes it wordier than it already is. Haitian Creole has evolved away from French. Including French translations here could be as pointless as including Latin translations in the article about Spanish; indeed, it does show useful information about the evolution, but the languages have differentiated from each other long enough for it not to be necessary. Any opinion about the place French has in this Haitian Creole article, those who patrol this article?--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 20:31, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, yes. I think that the corresponding French phrases would be both interesting and useful. The purpose of them is not to make a political point, but rather merely to be descriptive and helpful. It's not derogatory to Creole to recognize that it is closely related to French and to point out the correspondences. Just as many people know English and find the English equivalents helpful, many people also know French and would find the French phrases helpful in understanding the Creole and learning how the language is structured. (I had a similar experience in reading about Portuguese while knowing Spanish... Of course Portuguese is not a dialect of Spanish, but for someone who already knows Spanish, it's very helpful to see and understand the systematic correspondences between Portuguese and Spanish.) Omc (talk) 16:31, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

French spellings?

Why did someone change the spellings to French? Kreyol Ayisyen is its own language, with correct and incorrect ways to spell words. The words on the KREYOL page should be written in KREYOL, not French! --72.219.160.133 (talk) 18:23, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

The spellings were completely replaced by an anonymous user. While the replacement seems to have been done in good faith (and it was a LOT of work), I reverted the page to use the Kreyol spellings. (Since no one has complained about them before, I presume that the consensus is to keep them). I hope that the editor who did the change will discuss it here before reverting the page bck to his version. All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 19:33, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Bad news: Since you reverted, it looks like someone reverted the reversions, and so it's back to the French-etymology system which has been dead (and not much mourned) for decades. But I wouldn't even know how to revert the reverted reverted reversion, so... can you help? Sean M. Burke (talk) 05:21, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Jorge, this page has been a great resource in helping myself and many others learn Kreyol. 72.219.160.133 (talk) 13:04, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Phonetic system not official

The reason for my adjusting the spelling for the page on Haitian creole is that the phonetic alphabet is not an official creole alphabet nor is it of Haitian origin. I was simply giving you more accurate spellings to the words as the reason that the phonetic system isn't official in Haiti is because it looks nothing like french. Yes Creole and Standard (Parisian) French are different in syntax but the lexicon is mostly the same (with some loan words and variations)just pronounced with a different accent hence alternative spellings.

• Standard French - Je suis un homme haïtien et quand j’écris en créole j’en écri comme ça.

Haitian creole

• More proper spelling - Moi ç’un nhomme haïtien et puis l’heure’m écrir en créole moi écrir’l con ça
• Approximated spelling - Mouin ç’on nomme haïtien et puis l’hé’m écri en créole mouin écri’l con ça.
• Phonetic spelling - Mwen s’on nom ayisyen epi le’m ekri an kreyol mwen ekri’l kon sa.

I'm pretty sure it is official actually. I can't for the life of me find any documentation from the Haitian government on the spelling, but you can find plenty of material from them in it. I've never seen the "French" spelling used online except in some dated PDF files. [2] Internoob (talk) 00:47, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Internoob. The French-ish spelling has got to go-- only quite old material uses it. *All* material now in, and about, the language uses one or another variations on a pronunciation-based system, with *zero* reference to the French source word. Furthermore, it looks like *every single one* of the items in the References, Bibliography, or External Links section uses a modern pronunciation writing system. The French-based system is long dead, and not mourned. All the Kreyol spellings in this article should be reverted to, ASAP. (Later, some ambitious person can write a bit about the minor differences in how the different systems represent given phonemes.) Sean M. Burke (talk) 05:07, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

(About my note about comparing the phonetic writing systems: the Preface in Ann Pale Kreyòl is a good basis for that Sean M. Burke (talk) 05:25, 2 March 2010 (UTC))

• Well as a haitian who has been speaking creole since birth and whose family was raised and educated in Haiti, the phonetic system is an illiterate and illegitimate system and horrible, not to mention ugly, representation of our native tongue it is a disgrace and is meant for lazy people who don't feel to bother with going to school in order to learn how to spell correctly.

Qui bagaille ça qu’ap passer là? Moune Américain penser que yo connai toute… Tchuuuuu!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.104.104.54 (talk) 18:14, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Any reasons to include it in the article? Here, we have:

• The phonetic orthography is used by the government
• The "French" orthography is seldom found except in old materials
• All of our external links use the phonetic system

Versus:

• The phonetic system is "an illiterate and illegitimate system and horrible, not to mention ugly, representation of [Haitian Creole] it is a disgrace and is meant for lazy people who don't feel to bother with going to school in order to learn how to spell correctly." (exactly the attitude that opposed Hangeul, the alphabet of the Korean language) — Internoob (Talk · Cont · Wikt) 00:22, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

• Fermer dents’w cocorat! Si ous pas Haïtien pas occuper’w de affair nous. Moune Américain penser que l’heure yo dire on bagaille c’est ça lui yest. tchuuuu. Allez-vous-en! Et pis rêter faire promotion bagaille illettré ça. Gardes on tintin! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.104.36.177 (talk) 18:35, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

• • umm have u been to haiti because the government definitely does not write in creole. They may speak to the non french speaking masses in creole but that's it. People in Haiti barely even write creole anyway. Parler ça ous connai, pas ça ous penser. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.104.104.54 (talk) 20:20, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

    I'm going to ignore your flame baiting. I know exactly what you are saying when you speak in Creole.

    You overlooked my link earlier in the thread. [3] — Internoob (Talk · Cont · Wikt) 21:57, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

• Ous pas ca écri de langue nous si ous pas’t même al Haïti ou si ous pas connai culture ou histoir nous, Quitter vrai Haïtien enseigner gen yo parler créole. Nous connai'l pis mieux que ous. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.174.40.16 (talk) 23:42, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

  Translation for those who do not speak Creole: You can't write about our language if you haven't even been to Haiti or if you don't know our culture or history, let real Haitians teach people to speak Creole. We know it better than you.

  Who I am or where I'm from (and I may or may not be American as you claim; it's irrelevant) does not change the fact that the phonetic orthographies are far more commonly used than the other ones, and as such should be used in the article. — Internoob (Talk · Cont · Wikt) 03:01, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

  Premièrement! Just because Haitians or people who want to learn creole living in the U.S. use the phonetic spelling does not make it correct. People just take what the think they know or what they think is correct and run with it, flipping things around and making people believe that its true or in this case correct that is what we call in Haiti Parler Français (Speaking French) and by doing so they are misrepresenting our native tongue. 2 example's of Parler Français that continue to hear: 1 - That the term créole means white (this from mostly people from lousiane), if that were true then why would all of the franco-caribbean people, most of whom are African, proudly call themselves this and why would our language be called creole when it is clearly a black language. 2 - Linguists have this bogus perception that a creole language is a mixed language and all this blahblahblah. Using all these big words and confusing people when there is no need to. French creole used to be called patois in the early stages but as the language became wide spread it became known as creole because it was spoken by people of the french caribbean who are known as creoles plain and simple Créole parler, créole comprane so Jamaican patois is not Jamaican creole, nor is Bajan called Barbadian creole. To my knowledge the only real creoles are the many dialects of french creole and cape verdean creole (a portuguse based dialect), cape verdeans are to called creoles or rather Crioulos in portuguese. Suspenne parler français et apprenne vraiment comment parler créole —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.104.111.231 (talk) 03:33, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

  You seem to be talking as though the French-based spelling is objectively correct and better than the phonetic one, and that is simply not true. In fact, I still maintain that the phonetic system is better for this article for the reasons discussed above, but mostly because it is the most common orthography of Haitian Creole so far as most of us can tell. I don't know why you bring up all that about the term creole and so forth. —Internoob (Talk · Cont · Wikt) 02:06, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

• Dear Mister IP, I think you'll find "Just because Haitians...use the phonetic spelling..." is exactly a good reason to use the phonetic spelling. Also, a creole language is something different from a mixed language and French creoles are not mutually intellegible (ref:[4]) so saying the "many dialects of french creole" is inappropriate. Patois is a word used to mean just any language or dialect spoken in France other than Parisian French. It's not a useful category because it applies just as much to Basque as it does to Guiane creole.

  Anyway, Mister IP, have you been to Haiti much? Munci (talk) 18:10, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

• If you noticed i sais haitians in America (haitian americans) people in haiti hardly ever write in creole and those that do tend to be students who spell more closly to french which is actual and CORRECT spelling. Haitian americans don't count they are not creole natif natal. And duh that's what a patois is it is a dialect other than parisian french. In haiti and the french west indies the patois is called creole because we are creole and basque also is a patois so my usage of the term creole "which i proudly am" is not wrong, creole is the name of our patois it is not a category of language or dialect as linguist love to believe. There is one language called creole in the french west indies and each franco island has regional differences just like the many regional differences in Spanish throughout south America this doesn't make each a different spanish. Many haitians have immigarted to the other french antilles sans the need to learn some supposed new creole language because creole c'est creole. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.104.108.240 (talk) 21:39, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

• Ah. I had interpreted "Just because Haitians or people who want to learn creole living in the U.S. use the phonetic spelling does not make it correct." as meaning "Just because Haitians, or people who want to learn creole living in the U.S., use the phonetic spelling does not make it correct." but apparently you meant "Just because Haitians, or people who want to learn creole, living in the U.S. use the phonetic spelling does not make it correct."

  Do you have any proof/sources/references for any of this?

  But Basque is not a dialect of French. It's a completely different language. And no, there is not just one language called creole. Haiti creole is different from the French creoles elsewhere in the world which are certainly not the same as e.g. Indo-Portuguese creoles. How about Haitians emigrating to, say, Seychelles? Doubt they understand their creole. The situation isn't comparable to Spanish because Creoles are separate from their origin language. Latin American Spanish is still Spanish, not any creole.

  So you think linguists don't know about linguistics, eh? You do realise words can, and usually do, have more than one meaning, right? Munci (talk) 16:34, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

/w/ vs. /ɣ/

If [w] only occurs before rounded vowels and [ɣ] only before unrounded ones, they are allophones, aren't they? So how comes "However, some modern orthographies use both <r> and <w> since the difference is phonemic."? —Preceding unsigned comment added by A. di M. (talk • contribs) 18:44, 18 October 2009

The impression I get from the preface to this textbook is that /w/ and /ɣ/ are separate phonemes, but they're merged (to /w/) before back rounded vowels. Some orthographies are etymological and write gro for /gwo/ 'big', while others are phonetic and write gwo. /w/ can occur before unrounded vowels, as in /mwa/ 'month', spelled mwa or moua (but never mra). +Angr 09:53, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

And you have a minimal pair: /wi/ "yes" and /ɣi/ "road" (among others).--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 01:09, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Number of speakers = 14 million??

In the sidebar, the number of speakers is listed as 14,000,000. But the footnote on the number (http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=hat) does not support the number - it says "6,960,000 in Haiti (2001). Population total all countries: 7,701,640." And the opening sentence of the Wikipedia says 8 million in Haiti plus about 1 million elsewhere. I have not found any support elsewhere for a 14 million number. I'm reluctant to change it because I know it's referenced elsewhere (for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers) and I don't want to mess up the linkages. But I suggest that someone who knows how this works check and fix the number. I think the fix is simply to change 14 million to 8 million (or maybe 9 million). Omc (talk) 15:59, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Relocate "Usage Outside of Haiti" section

It seems odd that this is the very first section in this article. The main subject of the article should be the language itself, and how it's used by its principal speakers in Haiti. Usage outside of Haiti is interesting and relevant, but should be discussed after the main part of the article, not as the very first section. I'm relocating this section to the end. Omc (talk) 16:44, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Tupi

What does this mean in relation to pineapple? The link, as usual, goes to a fucking disambiguation page. Check your links, you fuckers. --213.130.252.119 (talk) 22:35, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

• Whoever edits or is in charge of this page knows nothing about Creole, the word "Ananas" pronounced (a'na'na) is a word from the Taino indians which means pineapple, I don't know what Tupi is ??? And the examples of Creole phrases are horrible: Its not mwen se yon dokte it's "Mouin c'est on docté" / "Mouin ç'on docté" or "Mwen sé on dokté" / "Mwen s'on dokté" according to the phonetic spelling and why aren't the pronoun abbreviations connected to the words for example: L ap vini should be "L'ap vini" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.104.98.219 (talk) 00:36, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

There is no single editor for any article and noone is in charge of a page. I do believe the specific language 'ananas' comes from is Guarani according to this German dictionry of plant etymology. 'yon' is used in scholarly literature such as On the Distribution of Determiners in Haitian Creole and HAITIAN CREOLE SE: A COPULA, A PRONOUN, BOTH OR NEITHER? ON THE DOUBLE LIFE OF A FUNCTIONAL HEAD. Any changes you could implement yourself as long as you provide sources. Munci (talk) 22:03, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

• Désolé mon cher mais vous avez tort, The word Ananas comes from the language of the Taino Indians.
• I'm not saying the word 'yon' is incorrect but the usage of the word in the examples is. 'Yon' is used less frequently, and when it is used it when saying on after a word is more difficult as in 'Prend on l’aute gâçon / Pran on lot gâson' which tends to sound like 'pr’on l’aute gâçon / pr’on lot gâson' which is an exceptable conjunction but if the speaker wants to be clear or annunciate I gues you could say, he or she’d use 'yon' making the sentence easier to say: 'Prend yon l’aute gâçon / pran yon lot gâson' —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.104.103.212 (talk) 21:28, 9 May 2010 (UTC)