scholarly journals The Making of Languages and New Literacies: San Andrés-Providence Creole with a View on Jamaican and Haitian

2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (79) ◽  
pp. 237-256
Author(s):  
Angela Bartens
Keyword(s):  
New Literacies ◽  
Language Attitudes ◽  
Haitian Creole ◽  
Favorable Change ◽  
Creole Languages ◽  
San Andres ◽  
Creole English

The aim of this paper is to examine the idea of «language making» and new literacies in creole languages with a focus on San Andrés-Providence Creole English. Jamaican and Haitian Creole are taken as points of comparison for their more advanced state of consolidation. Posts from Facebook groups gathered between February 2016 and July 2020 as the main source of data were complemented by 2015 data on San Andrés linguistic landscapes. The main finding is that, due to a favorable change in language attitudes both locally and globally, San Andrés-Providence Creole is entering into the domain of writing.

Claire Lefebvre, Creole genesis and the acquisition of grammar: The case of Haitian Creole. (Cambridge studies in linguistics, 88.) Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Pp. xviii, 461. Hb £45.00, $74.95.

2001 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-138
Author(s):  
Adrienne Bruyn
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
West African ◽  
Semantic Interpretation ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Haitian Creole ◽  
Nominal Structure ◽  
Present Book ◽  
Essential Contribution ◽  
The One ◽  
Creole Languages

In the continuing debate on the origins of creole languages, Lefebvre has long taken a strong stance in favor of an essential contribution of the West African substratum to the grammatical makeup of Haitian Creole; thus, she opposes both a universalist account along the lines of Derek Bickerton's bioprogram (e.g. 1984), and Robert Chaudenson's superstratist approach (e.g. 1992). Lefebvre's present book summarizes the main findings of two decades of research by herself and others (such as John Lumsden and Anne-Marie Brousseau) through various projects carried out at the Université du Québec à Montréal. The overall aim of this enterprise has been to test the hypothesis that adult speakers of the substratum languages, in creating a new creole language, use the properties of their native lexicons as well as the parametric values and semantic interpretation rules of their native grammars (9). In order to test this hypothesis, Haitian Creole is compared, on the one hand, with its superstratum or lexifier language, French, and on the other hand, with Fongbe (or Fon, belonging to the Gbe cluster of Kwa languages), as a representative of the substratum. Most of the book consists of the presentation of such three-way comparisons in regard to nominal structure (Chap. 4), the marking of tense, mood, and aspect (Chap. 5), pronouns (Chap. 6), clausal operators and the structure of the clause (Chaps. 7–8), the properties of verbs (Chap. 9), derivational affixes (Chap. 10), compounds (Chap. 11), and parametric options (Chap. 12). In all these areas, striking similarities between Haitian and Fongbe are revealed.

The influence of socio-economic status, age, gender, and level of literacy on language attitudes

2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-263
Author(s):  
Gerdine M. Ulysse ◽  
Khaled Al Masaeed
Keyword(s):  
Language Attitudes ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Socio Economic Status ◽  
Haitian Creole ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
Diverse Backgrounds ◽  
Literacy Level ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract This study investigated the relationship between socio-economic status, age, gender, and literacy level and Haitian Gonâviens‘ attitudes towards Haitian Creole or Kreyòl and French. Most studies that investigated language attitudes of Creolophones have found that they have negative attitudes towards Kreyòl. Nevertheless, previous studies often included participants who are affiliated with education such as students, teachers, and language policy makers, or those from higher social classes. The current study, however, utilized a language attitudes questionnaire to collect data from 78 adult informants from diverse backgrounds. These participants included 21 highly literate, 51 partially literate and 6 illiterate Haitians. Findings revealed that participants of higher socio-economic status have more positive attitudes towards French than those from lower socio-economic status. Results also showed that there is a tendency for age, gender, and literacy level to affect language attitudes. For instance, positive attitudes towards Kreyòl were found to be more prevalent among older participants than younger respondents. Similarly, male participants had more negative attitudes towards French than female informants. Moreover, respondents of lower literacy levels had more negative attitudes towards French than those who were highly literate.

Scrabble as a tool for Haitian Creole literacy

2009 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 275-305 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Hebblethwaite
Keyword(s):  
High School Students ◽  
Basic Structure ◽  
Special Method ◽  
School Students ◽  
Independent Evidence ◽  
American University ◽  
Haitian Creole ◽  
Cognitive Benefits ◽  
Haitian American ◽  
Creole Languages

This paper argues that Scrabble can be used as a tool to help maintain and grow all levels of Haitian Creole literacy and it provides the technical details for developing the game. The rules of the English version are given to introduce the game’s basic structure. Haiti’s educational, sociolinguistic, and literacy conditions are presented in order to put in context the orthographic form proposed for the Haitian Creole version. An overview of game culture in Haiti shows Scrabble’s potential for success. Previous research on the adaptation of Scrabble into Latin by means of a quantitative corpus-linguistic method is examined. Difficult aspects of standard Haitian Creole orthography (IPN) are discussed in order to expose potential pitfalls in design. Quantitative analysis of a Haitian Creole textual corpus provides an empirical basis for the distribution of letter tiles and their point values. Problems encountered in test-games played by Haitian-American university students and Haitian elementary and high school students inform the final proposal. The paper examines the work necessary for the successful introduction of Haitian Creole Scrabble and it provides independent evidence of the game’s cognitive benefits. Haitian Creole Scrabble is argued to be a creative and special method for expanding and strengthening literacy in Haitian Creole and other creole languages.

Morphological Processes in Haitian Creole

1989 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne-Marie Brousseau ◽  
Sandra Filipovich ◽  
Claire Lefebvre
Keyword(s):  
West African ◽  
African Language ◽  
African Languages ◽  
Haitian Creole ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Morphological Processes ◽  
Creole Languages ◽  
Selection Of

In this paper we examine the morphology of Haitian with respect to two issues widely discussed in the literature on creoles: 1) the substratum issue, formulated in our view in terms of the role played by relexification in the formation of Haitian Creole; and 2) the widespread assumption that creole languages are morphologically simpler than their lexifier language. These two issues are not unrelated. The morphological simplicity assumption is based on a comparison of creole with European languages that have contributed the bulk of their respective lexicons. In order to discuss the two issues, we will compare the productive morphology of Haitian with that of French (the lexifier language), and Fon, a contributive West African language. The major findings of this paper with respect to the issues addressed here are the following: 1) productive affixes of Haitian Creole pattern in a significant way with the model of contributing West African languages more so than with French; and 2) the presumed morphological simplicity of creoles reduces to the selection of the unmarked option with respect to the position of morphological heads.

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