[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
8562: Francophonie - francofolly (fwd)
From: ROODY BARTHELEMY <kreyolco@hotmail.com>
10% of the Haitian population that speaks French?
I think it's much less than that! There is a fallacy here that needs
correction. Of course in the context of an everyday conversation, it could
be excused as a rough estimate of a historically diglossic and discrepant
issue about the national language of the People of Haiti. But why continue
with the colonial practice of dis-servicing the first Black independent
Republic of the world with the undermining of its national language when all
researches made about and around the topic articulate so clearly the thruth
of this matter, as Guy Antoine and many others so rightly stated it.
Among several studies and just to cite one, let's read what Michele Burtoff
Civan & al. write in the CAL fact sheet titled 'Haitians: their History and
Culture': <<...while only about 10% of the population can be considered
bilingual in French and Haitian Creole, more than half of this 10% is less
than fluent in French. About 90% of the population speaks Haitian Creole
only.>>(p.16)
Let me emphasize on a few words from this exerpt:
--ONLY ABOUT 10%...CAN BE CONSIDERED...
--MORE THAN HALF OF THIS 10% IS LESS THAN FLUENT IN FRENCH.
--ABOUT 90%....SPEAKS CREOLE ONLY.
French is a foreign language, even for us, Haitians. Indeed, even
for...about 90% of our country's only-Creole speaking population. In the
case of Haiti, French has always been a foreign language to the People of
Haiti. I would add that French is even a detrimental foreign language to
Haitians. Culturally, socially,economically. And History will always be
there to show all the injustice the positon and the imposition of the French
language have caused to Haiti and its nationals.
There's an old Haitian saying "Ki byen frize te fè pou koukou konsa a pou
koukou fè pitit pou li rele pitit li frizelya?
Ayibobo.
Roody
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com