The politics of Haiti takes place in the framework of a unitary semi-presidential republic, where the president is the head of state and the prime minister is the head of government. The politics of Haiti are considered historically unstable due to various coups d'état, regime changes, military juntas and internal conflicts. After Jean-Bertrand Aristide was deposed, Haitian politics became relatively stable. The Economist Intelligence Unit rated Haiti an "authoritarian regime" in 2022. According to the V-Dem Democracy indices Haiti is 2023 the 4th least electoral democratic country in Latin America.
A creole language, or simply creole, is a stable natural language that develops from the process of different languages simplifying and mixing into a new form, and then that form expanding and elaborating into a full-fledged language with native speakers, all within a fairly brief period of time. While the concept is similar to that of a mixed or hybrid language, creoles are often characterized by a tendency to systematize their inherited grammar. Like any language, creoles are characterized by a consistent system of grammar, possess large stable vocabularies, and are acquired by children as their native language. These three features distinguish a creole language from a pidgin. Creolistics, or creology, is the study of creole languages and, as such, is a subfield of linguistics. Someone who engages in this study is called a creolist.
Nicaraguan Sign Language is a form of sign language developed by deaf children in a number of schools in Nicaragua in the 1980s. It is of particular interest to linguists as they view it as a unique opportunity to study what many view to be the birth of a new language.
Haitian Creole, or simply Creole, is a French-based creole language spoken by 10–12 million people worldwide, and is one of the two official languages of Haiti, where it is the native language of the vast majority of the population. Northern, Central, and Southern dialects are the three main dialects of Haitian Creole. The Northern dialect is predominantly spoken in Cap-Haïtien, Central is spoken in Port-au-Prince, and Southern in the Cayes area.
Louisiana Creole is a French-based creole language spoken by fewer than 10,000 people, mostly in the state of Louisiana. Also known as Kouri-Vini, it is spoken today by people who may racially identify as white, black, mixed, and Native American, as well as Cajun and Creole. It should not be confused with its sister language, Louisiana French, a dialect of the French language. Many Louisiana Creoles do not speak the Louisiana Creole language and may instead use French or English as their everyday languages.
In linguistics, relexification is a mechanism of language change by which one language changes much or all of its lexicon, including basic vocabulary, with the lexicon of another language, without drastically changing the relexified language's grammar. The term is principally used to describe pidgins, creoles, and mixed languages.
Jean-Claude Bajeux was a Haitian political activist and professor of Caribbean literature. For many years he was director of the Ecumenical Center for Human Rights based in Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, and a leader of the National Congress of Democratic Movements, a moderate socialist political party also known as KONAKOM. He was Minister of Culture during Jean-Bertrand Aristide's first term as President of Haiti.
A French creole, or French-based creole language, is a creole for which French is the lexifier. Most often this lexifier is not modern French but rather a 17th- or 18th-century koiné of French from Paris, the French Atlantic harbors, and the nascent French colonies. This article also contains information on French pidgin languages, contact languages that lack native speakers.
Félix Morisseau-Leroy was a Haitian writer who used Haitian Creole to write poetry and plays, the first significant writer to do so. By 1961 he succeeded in having Creole recognized as an official language of Haiti, after expanding its teaching in schools and use in creative literature. Morisseau also published works on French, Haitian Creole and Haitian French literature. He worked internationally, encouraging the development of national literature in post-colonial Ghana and Senegal. In 1981 he settled in Miami, Florida, where he was influential in uniting the Haitian community around Creole and encouraged its study in academia.
Salikoko Mufwene is a linguist born in Mbaya-Lareme in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He is the Edward Carson Waller Distinguished Service Professor of linguistics at the University of Chicago. Mufwene was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2022.
Oswald Durand was a Haitian poet and politician, said to be "to Haiti what Shakespeare is to England, and Dante to Italy." He was also a Haitian writer and poet of French and Creole expression, considered as the national poet of Haiti. Besides he was also judged as a Romantic poet and the most prolific one in the nineteen centuries. These 20th-century successors such as René Depestre, and Jacques Roumain congratulated Oswald Durand for his authentic expressions and honored him as a forerunner of Haitian indigenism. He was born in the northern part of Haiti, in the city of Saint-Louis du Nord. In 1842, both his parents died in the earthquake that devastated the city of Cape Haitian. Oswald Durand, and his sister, were welcomed in their maternal grandmother who raised them. He spent most of his childhood outside the city where he was born. Because of political instabilities in Haiti, he was forced to leave school and to educate himself without having recourse to a teacher.
Henri Wittmann is a Canadian linguist from Quebec. He is best known for his work on Quebec French.
Rap Kreyòl started in Haiti in the early ‘80s by the Late Great Master Dji, who witnessed how American Hip Hop gave birth to French Hip Hop while living in France. Hence, he moved back to Haiti and started the Hip Hop movement that took Haiti by storm. Consequently, many of those kids which Hip Hop spoke to in their special language for the first time continue to rap in Haitian Creole even after being in the United States the most part of their lives. Artists like Oz'mosis and Bennchoumy still rap in Haitian Creole still today.
The Haitian Educational System yields the lowest total rate in the education realm of the Western Hemisphere. Haiti's literacy rate of about 61% is below the 90% average literacy rate for Latin American and Caribbean countries. The country faces shortages in educational supplies and qualified teachers. The rural population is less educated than the urban. The 2010 Haiti earthquake exacerbated the already constrained parameters on Haiti's educational system by destroying infrastructure and displacing 50–90% of the students, depending on locale.
The Akademi Kreyòl Ayisyen, known in French as the Académie du Créole Haïtien and in English as the Haitian Creole Academy, is the language regulator of Haitian Creole. It is composed of up to 55 scholars under the leadership of Pierre-André Pierre.
Haiti Reads is a small nonprofit literacy organization based in the United States that provides educational support to communities in Haiti. Founded in 2007 by Jeanette Alfred, it is located in Chicago, Illinois, and currently has volunteer clusters in San Diego, California; Chicago, Illinois; and Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Dany Bébel-Gisler was an Afro-Guadeloupean writer and sociolinguist who specialized in Antillean Creole and ethnology. She was one of the first linguists to defend the preservation and teaching of Creole languages and study how the interplay of the lingua franca of the Caribbean reflected the social hierarchy, as well as the assimilation or lack thereof of both the colonizers and colonized. She was instrumental in the development of UNESCO's The Slave Route Project, tracing the intersection of African, Caribbean and European cultures and published several novels and children's books on Guadeloupean culture.
Pierre Vernet was a Haitian linguist and lexicographer, who created the Center for Applied Linguistics in Port-au-Prince. He was instrumental in standardizing Haitian Creole (Krèyol) spelling as an aid to literacy, and the elaboration of French-Krèyol lexicons of terminology. He also published dictionaries with Alain Bentolila and with Bryant Freeman.
Adeline Magloire Chancy is a Haitian educator, feminist, and politician. She has worked to promote the recognition of Haitian Creole as a valid language in its own right.
Marie Marcelle Buteau Racine was a professor of linguistics.
