#3916: Antoine comments on the language/pronunciation/spelling issue (fwd)

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From: Guy Antoine <GuyAntoine@windowsonhaiti.com>

Poincy says:
"Antoine's concern is similar to mine and I voiced it at the
onset. I attributed the changes not to the non-existence
of the sound in the language, but to a sheer accommodation
to the commoners' inability to produce the closed "e" sound.
This handicap is due to the people's lack of education, a fact
that makes the non-existence of the sound in question a
virtual factor."

Poincy, this does not at all sound like any concern that I have
expressed. I accept as a matter of fact that the majority of
Kreyòl speakers do not use the closed "e" sound, though I
do it when pronouncing "chemiz" (shirt), "grenadin" (grenadine),
"seriz" (cherry), for instance.  You can attribute this to my
middle class education, but it does NOT follow that majority
Haitians are "handicapped" for not speaking the way I do, or
even that this is due to a "lack of education".  My concern
was simply that there was no way for me to express in
writing the manner in which I speak, even taking into
consideration the variations allowed by the Orthography Law
 of 1979-80 or Dr. Yves Dejean ( per Marilyn Mason ). [ By the
way, Marilyn, are you saying that per the current standardization
of the language, one is entitled to write "ju", "duri", etc, as he
chooses?  This surprises me... ]

Note that I already knew about the adoption of "ui" in our
orthography, so this was not at all in question  Rather it was
an observation to invite the linguists to provide some information
about the uses (or misuses) of "ui" and "wi" in the examples that
I cited: "kuit" vs. "kwit", "nuit" vs. "nwit", etc...