Hi guys.
(sigh)
This is a response to my video "Les
consequences du Francais en Haiti"
which I did it in French talking about the
consequences of French in Haiti.
I published this in April and I have the
link to it up here and down there
in my description box.
I got some really strong reactions to
that post and it seems like I really hit a
nerve for some people so I'm dedicating
this week's message to response and debunk
the prevalent counter arguments I received
Here are the main points I made
in that video:
"French hinders comunication in
self-expression among Haitians
It divides the Haitian population and
fosters an inferiority complex for the
majority of the population.
Haitions sustitute someone's ability to
muster a few words in French for wisdom or
intelligence.Haitions fail to realize that
what they are seeing is more important
than the language they used to say in.
And lastly, Haitians by and large cannot
speak French.
These are fairly common and well-known
issues I presented to support my proposal
of eliminating French as one of the two
official languages of Haiti.
But many didn't want to hear it and here
are some of the responses that I want to
address.
The first one is that the problem of Haiti
is one of education not of language.
Here is my issue with that point.
Everyone knows that the state of education
in Haiti is dire, that has always been the
case in Haiti but have you stopped to
think that language is the basis of
learning and education, so if you are
attempting to teach in a language that is
cumbersome, unnatural and foreign to kids
then you keep them at a disadvantage.
The medium that allows you to communicate
the knowledge you are attempting to pass
on is extremely relevant.
My experience as a student in Haiti was
that many of my teachers were not fluent
in French, far from.
So yes, there is an educational crisis in
Haiti and this isn't breaking news to
anyone. But the fact that we are insisting
on sticking to French as the academic
language is to our own detriment.
It is pedagogically impractical and
frankly at this point pretty irresponsible
The other thing people say that kind of
goes along with the lack of education
argument is that well, we shouldn't just
limit our kids to Creole we should teach
them French, Spanish, German, Italian,
everything.
Ok, well, do I want our kids to learn
multiple languages?
Of course.
I would like every little Haitian out
there to know as many languages as the
human brain can retain and my argument has
never been to eradicate French from
Haitian schools but rather to repeal its
status as an official language of the
of Haiti and instead prioritize Creole
which is the language that every last
Haitian speaks.
Luxembourg has 3 official languages.
One of them I'm sure most of people have
never heard of, it's called Luxembourgish
and it is the language that is indigenous
to its people, the language of the heart
for them so to speak.
Even though, not many people outside of
Luxembourg use it, that is the language
that kids are taught in the first year of
primary school before switching to German
and then French.
And proficiency and all three of their
official languages is required for
graduation from secondary school.
Now as you can see they are somehow able
to pull off a
trilingual educational system to go along
with the fact that they have 3 offical
languages meaning their important
legislature, and official national affairs
are recorded and reported steadily in all
3 of these languages,