User:Yarinashen/sandbox

Select & Copyedit an article

• Selected Haitian Creole as my topic.
• Divided the "history" into smaller sections. However, when I opened up the revision history, I didn't find my username and instead found an IP address: 198.0.156.123. Maybe I didn't successfully logged in when l made the changes; or maybe it has something to do with using the public wifi — I was at a Starbuck.

Article evaluation

• Everything is relevant to the topic and the article is neutral. The citations work and support the claims. The sources are neutral. However, I feel like the "origin" should be a sub-section under "history". And the last part of the history is about literature development, which I think can be moved to a separate article with more information. In addition, the history, especially the modern history part, can be added in more contents.

• At the beginning of the article, there's an introduction about the definition of a creole, which is something we discussed in class.

• Discussion on the talk page:
  • Many people discussed about the pronunciation and the IPA of the language, and about if certain examples of words and phrase are necessarily
  • Relation to French: people often misunderstand the language as kind of a "dialect" of French. It's not true. There is the so called "Haitian French" which we can call it a dialect of French, but Haitian Creole is another story. Linguistically speaking, Haitian Creole is an independent language with its own grammar, phonology, and all the features that make it a separate language from French (although the origin of most of its vocabulary is indeed French).
  • Someone asks if Haiti is part of the Latin America — which is kind of irrelevant to the topic of the article itself — but it's a very interesting question.
  • Many native speakers of Haitian Creole added specific examples

• The article is rated Haitian Creole as C-Class and listed as a level-4 vital article in Language with further improvement needed. It's of interest to 3 WikiProjects:
  • WikiProject Haiti
  • WikiProject France
  • WikiProject Languages

Plan & Sources

Plan to contribute to the article:

• Adding in a part about the social status of Haitian Creole in the modern society
• How it differs from French
• Move the origin as a subtitle under the history, or simply before history
• Role of Haitian Creole in educational system
• Adding some famous HC writers and literature work

Sources

• Valdman, Albert. Haitian Creole: Structure, Variation, Status, Origin. Sheffield, UK, Equinox, 2015.  ISBN: 9781845533878 (hardback)

• Scott, Nicole A. "Creole Languages." Encyclopedia of Race and Racism, edited by Patrick L. Mason, 2nd ed., vol. 1, Macmillan Reference USA, 2013, pp. 445-451. Gale Virtual Reference Library.
• Melancon, Megan E. "Haitian creole." Routledge Encyclopedia of Linguistics, edited by Philipp Strasny, London, Routledge, 2005. Literature Online.
• FÉRÉRE, GÉRARD A. “DIGLOSSIA IN HAITI: A COMPARISON WITH PARAGUAYAN BILINGUALISM.” Caribbean Quarterly, vol. 23, no. 1, 1977, pp. 50–60. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40653330.
• Yves Dejean (1983) Diglossia revisited: French and Creole in Haiti, <i>WORD</i>, 34:3, 189-213, DOI: 10.1080/00437956.1983.11435744 

Draft

Haitian Creole vs. French

Haitian Creole and French have similar pronunciations and share many lexical items. However, many of the words might look the same but actually have different meanings. These are called false cognates. For example, as Valdman mentions in Haitian Creole: Structure, Variation, Status, Origin, the world for "frequent" in French is fréquent; however, its cognate in Haitian Creole frekan means 'insolent, rude, and impertinent' and usually refers to people. In addition, Haitian Creole and French are very different in terms of grammar, which is the main reason that makes them mutually unintelligible. For example, in Haitian Creole, verbs are not conjugated as they do in French.

Sociolinguistics

Although both French and Haitian Creole are official languages in Haiti, French is often considered the high language and Haitian Creole as the low language in the diglossic relationship of these two languages in society. That is too say, for the minority of Haitian population that is bilingual, the use of these two languages largely depends on the social context: French is more used in public, especially in formal situation, where as Haitian Creole is more used in a daily bases and is often heard in ordinary conversation.

However, there's still a large population in Haiti that is unilingual in Haitian Creole. For these people, Haitian Creole is the sole means of communication, whether under formal or informal conditions. As Yves Dejean states in Diglossia revisited: French and Creole in Haiti:

"French plays no role in the very formal situation of a Haitian peasant (more than 80% of the population make a living from agriculture) presiding at a family gathering after the death of a member, or at the worship of the family lwa or voodoo spirits, or contacting a Catholic priest for a church baptism, marriage, or solemn mass, or consulting a physician,nurse, or dentist, or going to a civil officer to declare a death or birth."(Dejean 192)

Use in educational system

In most schools, French is still the preferred language for teaching. Generally speaking, Haitian Creole is more used in public schools, as that's where most children of ordinary families who often only speak Haitian Creole go to school.

Decades ago, the education system was French-dominant. Except the children of elites, many kids had to drop out of school because learning French was very challenging to them and they had a hard time to follow up. The Bernard Reform of 1978 tried to introduce Haitian Creole as the teaching language in the first four years of primary school; however, the reform overall was not very successful. As a result, the use of Haitian Creole has grown but in a very limited way. After the earthquake in 2010, basic education becomes free and more accessible to the monolingual masses. The government is still trying to expand the use of Haitian Creole and improve the school system. Although there's still a long way to go, efforts are being made.

Literature development

In 2001, Open Gate: An Anthology of Haitian Creole Poetry was published. It's the first time a collection of Haitian Creole poetry was published in both Haitian Creole and English. 

List of Haitian Creole-language writers:

• Louis-Philippe Dalembert

• Frankétienne
• Ady Jean-Gardy
• Josaphat-Robert Large

• Félix Morisseau-Leroy

• Lyonel Trouillot

Peer review

Hi Yanru,

I will be reviewing your article for your topic.

I like your comparison of the French language and Haitian Creole, although I think that if you go in more detail about the similarities and differences. Your description of the language use under certain social circumstances is really interesting and all your citation all in date and your links work as well. The article is neutral and informative, but I think the French topic is a little bit irrelevant to the language you are describing. I am expecting to see more language development and acquisition in your section of educational role. Overall, I think you have a good start, keep moving and good luck!

best,

Huixing

Response

Thanks for your feedback Huixing!

I'll try to find more example of the grammar differences between French and Haitian Creole. I agree that French is a bit irrelevant to HC, but in order to create a more holistic understanding of its sociolinguistic role I have to add in parts about French as the two languages both play important roles in the Haitian society. But I'll try to reduce the proportion of French. Again thanks for your comments! Yarinashen (talk) 00:37, 30 July 2017 (UTC)