16925: (Hermantin) Miami-Herald-Haitian Creole one of the fastest-growing languages in (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Sat, Oct. 11, 2003

EDUCATION
Haitian Creole one of the fastest-growing languages in S. Fla.
BY TRENTON DANIEL
tdaniel@herald.com


More photos

SEEKING ANSWERS: Student Peter Stearn asks a question during a Creole class.
With him are students Monica Fonht, left, and Maggie McGraw. PATRICK
FARRELL/HERALD STAFF


Poukisa ou vle etidye Kreyol?

The answers to this question -- Why do you want to study Haitian Creole? --
are as varied as the students in Roland Augustin's beginner's class at Miami
Dade College.

There's the doctor who wants to understand what his patient is describing.

There's the aviation worker whose boyfriend is Haitian.

There's the immigration activist who wants to speak the language of her
comrades.

And the family court judge who does not want to rely on a translator in the
courthouse.

And one student manages a trendy South Beach Haitian restaurant.

''With Haitian customers and Haitian employees, I feel I'm obligated to
speak Haitian Creole,'' said Peter Stearn, manager of Tap Tap Haitian
restaurant. ``But it will carry me in good stead anywhere in Miami.''

With that sentiment in mind, Stearn and nearly a dozen other non-Haitians --
none of whom have a single family tie to Haiti, not even a planned trip --
gather twice a week at Miami Dade College's downtown campus. Classes are
also available at Florida International University, and the Berlitz program
offers courses on Brickell Avenue and in Coral Gables and Fort Lauderdale.
Private lessons can be found, too, throughout Little Haiti and North Miami.

''Most of these people take these classes because they want to communicate
on their jobs or with their friends and family,'' said Yvette Crichlow, who
oversees the college's community education program.

Instructor Roland Augustin writes some commonly used phrases in a meticulous
cursive hand on the blackboard.

''Ki metye ou?'' -- What is your job?

''Mwen se jij,'' responds Paul Siegel, 65. I am a judge.

Siegel, who handles Miami-Dade family court cases, is clear on why he wants
to learn the language: communicate with Creole-speaking litigants and corner
South Florida's Haitian community for its vote for next year's judicial
elections.

GETTING VOTES

''I want to be able to communicate to Haitians in their native language,''
said Siegel, who plans on using Haitian radio stations to get votes. ``I
think that will give them the impulse to go out and vote for a
Creole-speaking judge.''

His classmate, Frank Singleton, is a physician at Jackson Memorial Hospital.

''We have translators at the hospital, but you have to understand what the
patient is saying,'' he said.

Knowing Creole, Singleton explained, would let him follow his patients'
trains of thought to see if they are lucid or healthy.

Proficiency would also prove useful in Miami-Dade hospital corridors where
Haitian healthcare workers move. Singleton does not want to miss out on the
conversations around him.

The nearly dozen students leaf through their paperback grammar books and
English-to-Creole dictionaries.

The fact that the oral language -- Creole started on Hispaniola plantations
as a pidgin between masters and slaves when French colonizers ruled over
West African slaves some three hundred years ago -- is now a written
language is a sign it's here to stay. And South Florida had better get used
to it, local Haitian leaders say.

''[Creole] is one of the fastest growing minority-group languages in South
Florida,'' said Gepsie Metellus, executive director of Sant La, or Haitian
Neighborhood Center. ``For some, Haitian Creole is one of the new modern
languages.''

There used to be a time when just Spanish and English took credit as South
Florida's major languages. But as more Haitian politicians and professionals
have stepped into the spotlight in recent years, Creole has followed,
inching its way into public places -- a testimony to its growing popularity.
Today, it's not uncommon to find the phonetic language appearing in South
Florida's airport terminal announcements, on signs in courthouses and on
causeway bridges and on the streets in weekly newspapers like Kiskeya
Herald.

It's difficult to say how many non-Haitians -- blan, Creole for foreigner --
are taking classes or private lessons. There hasn't been a sharp increase in
enrollment in Creole classes, but schools like Miami Dade College and
Berlitz have added Creole to their curriculum. Private lessons can be found,
too.

On a recent Thursday night, Jan Mapou gave a private lesson from the second
floor of his namesake bookstore, Libreri Mapou, located in the heart of
Little Haiti on Northeast Second Avenue. His pupils were three missionaries
-- blan -- poised to spend a year working in a hospital in the provincial
town of Léogne.

''Ti gason pa bon. Li gen dan bonbon,'' Trisha Allen, 22, read from a
notebook. The little man is not good. He has dirty teeth.

She looked up at the instructor for approval.

''Beautiful!'' responded Mapou.

Mapou acted out the lesson.

CLASS LAUGHTER

''Nen vonvon. A nen vonvon is somebody who talks like this,'' Mapou said
with a high nasal sound. Student Caroline Grady, 25, snapped her shoulders
forward as she laughed at Mapou's impersonation.

The missionaries' motives for seeking to learn Creole seemed obvious.

But asked why she's taking the class, Allen said: ``Our program wanted us to
be prepared as much as possible. But basically, we just want to earn the
respect of the people we will be working with.''

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