Haitian Creole - Structure, Variation, Status, Origin - Albert Valdman
In Memoriam
Haitian Creole - Structure, Variation, Status, Origin - Albert Valdman
Albert Valdman [+]
Indiana University
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Description
Haitian Creole is the creole language with the largest number of speakers: about eight million in Haiti and two million in diaspora communities, in the United States, the Bahamas, Canada, and overseas French departments Guadeloupe, Martinique and French Guyana. Haitian Creole presents a comprehensive view of the structure and development of Haitian Creole. It provides a detailed analysis of the phonology and grammar of the language, and points out key differences between these two fundamental aspects of the language and corresponding features of French. The book contains a detailed description of the productive strategies of vocabulary development, and deals with the origin of the lexicon of Haitian Creole. A signal innovation compared to other descriptions of the language is the treatment of linguistic variation, both geographical dialects and variation determined by social factors, as well as the presentation of earlier forms of Haitian Creole as attested by texts from the colonial period. Another major contribution is the discussion of language planning issues—the development of an autonomous systematic orthography and the standardization of the language—and related ones concerning the role of Haitian Creole in education and its status relative to the other officially recognized language of Haiti, French.