13698: Chamberlain re 13695: Vishnusurf: Creole vs French (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

> VISHNUSURF@aol.com wrote:

> someone claimed that any native French speaker could become proficient
> in Creole after 2 days in Haiti. (...)  this claim is woefully false and
also offensive
> to the Haitian people, because it smacks of the thankfully-now-dead claim
that
> Creole is not a language.

Before we go any further, the original statement was:

>> It is pretty easy for a French only
>> speaking person to understand Creole after only 2 days Haiti.

"pretty easy to understand" is not the same as "proficient"

Of course Creole is a separate language.  But just as French or Spanish
speakers find it relatively easy to learn each other's languages because
of their many similarities, so can French and Creole speakers.
Though two days is certainly pushing it.


> I know lots of French people in Haiti who have spent months, even in some
cases
> years in the country, and their Creole is abominably bad.

That may well say more about the people involved (some bad at languages or
unwilling
to learn) that about the difference between French and Creole.


> It is almost like saying a Catholic theologian could understand Vodou
after 2
> days in the country.  Puh-Leez!!!

No, it is _not_ "almost like saying" that.

Discussion about the difference between French and Creole so often get
tangled up
with the perfectly-understandable wish to distinguish Creole from French
(and
exaggerate that distinction) for emotional and nationalistic reasons, which
is a
diversion. Creole _is_ a separate language in its own right.  To say it has
many
similarities to another (French) does not change that.  But some Creolists
seem
to want to deny _any_ similarity at all.

The eight-year-old Republic of Corbettlandia has been consumed more than
once
by endless and furious debate on Creole vs French.  Are we off again...?


        Greg Chamberlain