By Wynnie Lamour, Founder of the Haitian Creole Language Institute
On the afternoon of Saturday, October 19, 2013, Haiti Cultural Exchange (HCX) collaborated with the Haitian Creole Language Institute of New York (HCLI) to provide an Introductory Haitian Creole language workshop for the community. Founded earlier in the year by Wynnie Lamour, a long-time Language educator, HCLI is focused on elevating the status of Haitian Creole by providing a dedicated space where anyone who is interested can learn the language. As community members trickled in to the HCX office located at FiveMyles gallery in Crown Heights Brooklyn, it was clear that they were eager to learn. The workshop, facilitated by Wynnie, began with a brief overview of the language. Discussed were the history of the language, details of its French and West African origins, information on the standardization of the Haitian Creole orthography, and some technical linguistic terms that are used to describe the language, such as analytic.
An analytic language is a language that uses entirely separate words to indicate different parts of speech, such as tenses, plurality and possession. Other analytic languages include Chinese and Vietnamese.
The workshop continued with a review of the sounds of Haitian Creole. Some people expressed surprise to hear facts such as there is no need for a plain letter “c” in Haitian Creole. As a highly phonetic language, i.e., each letter makes one corresponding sound. There is no need for a letter that plays a dual role in many languages. To make a hard “c” sound like in the English word cat, you can use the letter “k”, like in the Haitian Creole word “kenbe” – to hold. To make a soft “c” sound like in the English word celery you can use the letter “s”, like in the Haitian Creole word “souke” – to shake. Everyone actively participated by repeating different words and sounds out loud, becoming familiar with the Kreyòl-flavored sounds.
We continued with a grammar lesson titled “How to put together a sentence”. Basics such as common verbs and common nouns were covered, as well as tense markers.
A tense marker is a separate word (or sound) that is used to indicate different tenses, such as present tense, past tense, future tense, etc…
Participants were given practice exercises to work out on their own, really allowing them the opportunity to apply what they had just learned. Working in pairs, students had to interview each other and learned how to introduce their partners to the class, in Kreyòl. Workshop Participants had fun learning the different ways of responding to “Sak pase?!” that went beyond the well-known, “Map boule!” While it was evident from their questions that everyone was there for a different reason (Was Kreyòl comparable to African-American Vernacular English? What was the difference between Kreyòl and the patois that is spoken in Jamaica? Who are some of the people spearheading the changes that are happening in the perception of Kreyòl?), it was also clear that all workshop participants were driven by a genuine curiosity and interest for a language that, though spoken and held dear by millions, still struggles to prop itself up against constant attempts to belittle and denigrate it. The workshop ended with a reading of a poem borrowed from a monthly publication of the Haitian Organization Sosyete Koukouy called Tigout Pa Tigout (Drop by Drop) titled “Se Kreyòl Nou Pale” by Bob Lapierre (September 2013). A line from the poem really drove home the need for activities such as these Kreyòl workshops, not just to help combat the negative stereotypes associated with Haiti, but also to continue propelling the fact that Haitian Creole is both meaningful and useful as a language:
“Pou nou menm Ayisyen, fòk Kreyòl la anlè… Kreyòl pale, Kreyòl konprann.”
“For us Haitians, Kreyòl must be held high… Kreyòl spoken, Kreyòl understood.”
Comments