a1702: You say Voodoo, I say Vodou (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: JJEANPIERRE1@aol.com

I guess some battles must be fought again and again and ...
Bob, here is  my take on this voodoo/Vodou discussion posted on June 24, 2001
_________
The conquerors write history, they say.  The case of Haiti could not be more
antithetical.
We kicked the French asses and they wrote our history and imposed on us their
culture and obviously their language.
Our soccer coach Bob Corbett's claim on being politically incorrect smacks to
me of quite the opposite: if Webster says it, it must be true, he implies.
This idea of a rigid English orthography for every proper geographic locality
is basically flawed; France, Paris, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Trinidad,
Guadeloupe, Martinique etc... are words quite illustrative of that verity.
Isn't a fact that just as etymologists study the history of a particular
word, dictionary editors only codify said word?  If it is so, is not evident
that a people would have to, before (and  even after) any study, create their
language with its idioms and the likes?

Until about the late 70s, our Kreyol orthography was strictly French based.
Around that time UNESCO financed a project to standardize the Haitian
language.  Professor Vernet (his first name escapes me) was among the leading
linguists to have played an important role in the project.  In 1979 the
government of Baby Doc passed a law (or a resolution?) adopting such written
standard (brother Guy Antoine got it right).
So after 175 years of relegating our tongue to a second (or worse) category
status, we, as a people, began affirming our identity through the medium we
all speak.
I agree with Bob, when used as an adjective regarding the entire body or
religion, the v does not have to be a majuscule.
Nevertheless, as Guy, Mambo Racine and the others have so eloquently said,
Voodoo /voodoo has been so besmirched, soiled, perverted by racist Hollywood
since the 30s, that I believe, regardless of all logically etymological
assertions, we, as a people, should kill it.
The position of our gracious host is very logical and objective.  But we are
not talking about logic here.
It is more than a "You say potato, I say potåto" dialectic colloquy.  It is a
matter of national affirmation.  Webster, notwithstanding.
jean jean-pierre