ABSTRACT
Haitian Creole, also sometimes termed Haitien, is spoken in Haiti (where it has been an official language alongside French since 1961) by at least 8 million people, and there are significant communities of speakers elsewhere in the Caribbean (particularly Cuba) and in the United States. In Haiti it is the native language of practically the entire population, and the only language for the huge majority. Haitian Creole dates from the mid-seventeenth century. The main component (90%) of the lexis is French, representing an original pidgin plus an eighteenth-century influx of Francophone colonists from all parts of France. Among the modifications French words have undergone in their transition to Creole are:
dropping of the first syllable: rive ‘arrive, happen’ (< arriver)
dropping of /r/: pòt ‘door’ (< porte)
incorporation of determiner: zoranj ‘orange’ (< des oranges); dlo ‘water’ (< de l’eau)
vowel change: itilize ‘use’ (< utiliser)
semantic shift: kriye ‘weep’ (< crier ‘shout’)
retention of earlier pronunciation: frèt ‘cold’ (eighteenth-century pronunciation of froid)
