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,
even the one that we've never heard of.
What's the point of this little sidebar?
Well, it isn't a sidebar at all.
It is to answer to the people who would rather say: let's just teach our Haitian
kids every language on the planet instead of focusing on teaching them in their
primary language, Creole.
A language that is said to be official in our country yet all the important business
political, professional and administrative dealings are not recorded or reported
in Creole.
Over the years, when nationally elected officials address the population,
they deliver speeches in French and all while everyone knows that Creole
is the language.
Creole is constitutionally one of our official language but that's only"a L'oral
like people say, meaning it's only something we say.
Have we even tried to apply it in that capacity?
Have we even tried before we start crying how it is unsustainable as a global means
of communication for our children?
What kills me is that these people objecting so passionately against the
removal of French are the first to boast that we defeated French in 1804
and that's the one thing from which they derive Haitian pride, yet they don't
realize that they are perpetuating oppression,
holding stubbornly onto the language and the ways of the French at the expense of
their own culture.
For those of you telling me that back in the days, you and your friends used to
speak French, that's like me say every Haitian speaks English because my friends
and I speak it.
That doesn't mean anything.
If you look at the data, education has always been a privilege reserved for the
very few in Haiti and only the educated can manage to speak a little French in
Haiti ergo.
Certain people's experiences back in the day when things were a little bit better
for some doesn't demonstrate that at some point French worked in Haiti.
It never did and never will.
Now, the other argument I got quite a bit is that we can't get rid of French
because we need something to keep us connected to the rest of the world and
people were also saying that having a Creole take-over
now would set us back because we would have to start from scratch
since Creole is such an unformulated language.
Ok, first of all, I hate to break it to you but the world has left Haiti behind
a long time ago, and it's not just because our people don't speak French,
it's because we have not invested or educated our people.
Speaking French is not what's going to get connected or keep us connected to the
world because we don't need French to facilitate international exchanges
and to implement French as a language of the Haitian people would require the same
effort as to implement any other language outside of Creole.
With Creole we have an advantage,
that's our mother tongue, we already speak it.
We have to make the distinction:
To teach French is not the same as educating our people.
Here in the USA, everyone speaks the same language, yet you will see that an
uneducated person cannot articulate or express themselves.
The reason why our Creole-speaking masses sound uneducated oftentimes
is because they are uneducated,not because they are speaking Creole.
However, French can make a smart and educated Haitian sound stupid
And a stupid Haitian who can remember their French vocab and grammar rules is
oftentimes reveal and considered smart,no matter how dimwitted they might be.