Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures Online

1. Introduction ⇫ ¶

Haitian Creole is spoken by approximately 9,5 million speakers in Haiti, the western part of the central island of the Greater Antilles (formerly called Hispaniola) in the north of the Antilles archipelago. Within one century, Haiti has experienced the departure of about 2 million Haitians; the diaspora can mainly be found in the USA, Canada (Quebec), the Dominican Republic, and Overseas France (Lesser Antilles, Guyana). It is difficult to determine the exact percentage of speakers of Haitian Creole among those who have emigrated. However, it is certain that Haitian Creole has more speakers than any other creole language.

2. Sociohistorical background ⇫ ¶

We will first briefly retrace some events in the modern history of the island Hispaniola. The first period, which begins with the Spanish conquest in 1492, came to a tragic end in 1520 with the end of the Taíno society, the Amerindian society which had inhabited the area before the arrival of the Spanish. The 16th century experienced the prime and subsequent decline of Spanish sugar production. Due to further expansion of the Spanish kingdom into new territories on the American continent, the island was gradually depopulated. Meanwhile, new non-Spanish arrivals, who were mostly from the western part of France and protected by France, migrated to the deserted north-eastern part of the island. These included freebooters, buccaneers, and their indentured servants. It was the indentured servants who made up most of the workforce in the pioneering stage of the agricultural colonization of the western part of the island by the French from 1660 onwards. The cruel treatment they endured foreshadowed the inhuman conditions of slave labour on the plantations. The Treaty of Ryswick (1697) put the western part of the island, Saint-Domingue, officially under French control. The number of slaves transported from West Africa did not become important until after the beginning of the 18th century with the development of sugar exportation and the boom of the plantation economy. Although it began very slowly, the importation of slaves accelerated greatly in the last years of the colonial regime (1785–1789). It has been calculated that a total of 800,000 African slaves were brought into Saint-Domingue during the 18th century (d’Ans 1987: 175). These Africans came from an immense territory, a hinterland that stretched out from the Atlantic Coast to Lake Chad and to the regions of the Gulf of Guinea located between modern-day Senegal and Cameroon. It is very likely that they spoke many different languages, some of which belonged to the Kwa group, others of which belonged to the Benue-Congo group in the Niger-Congo language family. Therefore, it is extremely difficult to make a judgement about the respective contribution of the involved languages (Chaudenson 2003: 90–97); contributing to this difficulty is the fact that we do not possess information about the older state of the languages involved. These were languages with an oral tradition and which, therefore, underwent a faster evolution than languages that were fixed in a writing system.

3. Sociolinguistic situation ⇫ ¶

The Haitian Constitution from 1987 stipulates in Article 5 that “All Haitians are unified by a common language: Creole”. It designates Creole as the official language next to French, the historical official language (since 1918). However, the majority of official administrative texts are in French, with only a few bilingual exceptions. Whereas all Haitians can speak Creole, only a minority of the population (about 7% according to the most careful estimates) actually speak French. Given the geopolitical situation of Haiti, Spanish and English also have an importance that cannot be underestimated. Education, which had for a long time been confined to French, opened up to Creole in 1979 as part of a reform which has led to diverse and sometimes erratic practices. Since that date, Creole has had an official orthography with a phonological basis: Simple letters and some double letters represent the sounds. Thus, the grapheme <e> represents the sound [e], and the grapheme <on> represents the sound [õ].

Like any natural language, Haitian Creole constitutes a variable entity (cf. Fattier (1998) for the study of the diatopic variation of Creole as spoken by rural monolinguals). However, the dialectal differences do not differ enough to hinder comprehension. As has been observed since Dejean (1980: 167), the global description of each and every dialect includes forms which are peculiar to these dialects, and also forms that appear in all dialects. This survey intends to deal with the “forms common to all dialects”, taking into account the compromise that sometimes exists when one includes geographic and social variation. A remarkable trait concerning diastratic variation is the presence of round back vowels (three oral and one nasal) in the phonological system of bilingual French–Creole speakers. Likewise, such vowels can be found in the variety of Creole spoken by monolinguals in Northern Haiti (for an example see Fattier 1998(1): 209).

Haitian Creole is probably, of all creoles, the most advanced creole in the long process of standardization; this is reflected in part by the existence of about 15 dictionaries (Valdman 2005: 39–51). But in terms of its codification it is still lacking, for one thing, a real monolingual dictionary.

The earliest known documents of importance for Haitian Creole are, on the one hand, the “revolutionary proclamations” (texts that announce the abolition of slavery) and, on the other hand, a French-Creole lexicon and French-Creole conversations which appeared in a work published by S. J. Ducœurjoly in 1802 (283–406), i.e. two years before Haiti’s independence (January 1st, 1804). Some of these old documents have been reproduced by Hazaël-Massieux (2008).

4. Phonology ⇫ ¶

The phonological description represented here is based on the variety of Creole used by monolingual speakers, setting aside diatopic characteristics. The vowel inventory of Haitian Creole consists of 10 phonemes: Seven oral and three nasal vowels. The Creole vowels /i/, /e/, /ɛ/, /ẽ/, /a/, /ã/, /ɔ/, /õ/, /o/, and /u/, which can be found respectively in pi ‘pus, discharge’, pe ‘shut up’, pè ‘fear’, pen ‘bread’, pa ‘step’, pan ‘peacock’, pò ‘port, harbour’, pon ‘bridge’, po ‘skin’, and pou ‘for’ are distinctive in these words. The nasality of the vowels is clearly distinctive, as is shown by the following minimal pairs: lanmen /lãmẽ/ ‘handshake’ vs. lanmè /lãmɛ/ ‘sea, ocean’; Bawon /bawõ/ ‘voodoo spirit’ vs. bawo /bawo/ ‘rung of ladder, chair’; lak /lak/ ‘trap’ vs. lank /lãk/ ‘anchor’. At the same time, there are cases of vowel assimilation when coming into contact with nasal consonants: In words such as moun, larim, or youn, numerous speakers tend to nasalize the vowel. It is also necessary to distinguish between cases of free variation of the type kanna /kana/ ‘duck’ and cases where nasalization is obligatory.

The consonant inventory consists of sixteen phonemes. To these, three glides (approximants) can be added. The palatal /j/ stands in opposition to the bilabial velar /w/ as is illustrated by the following minimal pairs: /jɛ/ ‘yesterday’ vs. /wɛ/ ‘see’, /nwɛ/ ‘very black’ vs. /njɛ/ ‘stupid’, /mjɛl/ ‘honey’ vs. /mwɛl/ ‘marrow’, /kaw/ ‘crow’ vs. /kaj/ ‘house’. The labial palatal /ɥ/ probably has to be counted as a phoneme; although it has a reduced distribution (contrary to the two other glides, it cannot be found in a syllable-final or word-final position). It is well attested in words such as uit [ɥit] ‘eight’, uityèm [ɥitjɛm] ‘eighth’, or lannuit [lãnɥit] ‘night’. For all speakers there is a distinctive difference between the words ui /ɥi/ (variant of uit in ui san dola: ‘800 dollars’) ‘eight’ and wi /wi/ ‘yes’.

Haitian Creole is a language with fixed word stress on the last syllable of the word.

Phenomena of obligatory and optional external sandhi are very frequent: Dejean (1980: 140–149) has briefly described 15 cases. Phonetic alterations such as vowel elision do their part in obscuring, sometimes considerably, the relation between the written and the spoken language. Dejean (1980: 147) gives the example of “the indefinite article, in fast speech reduced to the nasal vowel /õ/, which has the ability, though not obligatorily, to lead to the loss of the preceding vowel /seõnɛg/ – [sõnɛg], /seteõnɛg/ – [setõnɛg] ‘this is/was somebody’ ”.

Haitian Creole has latent consonants in some words; so, for example, certain numerals – de ‘two’, twa ‘three’ – show an obligatory linking consonant before a word beginning with a vowel or before a suffix beginning with a glide: [twamoun] ‘three people’, [twazã] ‘three years’, [twazjɛm] ‘third’. The preposition an ‘in’ also presents a latent consonant: an Frans ‘in France’, ann Ayiti ‘in Haiti’.¹

The following inventory of syllabic structures is attested: V (a, e, è), CV (bo ‘kiss’), CVC (bòl ‘bowl’, chat ‘cat’, saf ‘glutton’), VC (ak ‘act’), VCC (aks ‘axle’), CCV (dlo ‘water’), CCVC (dyòl ‘mouth (familiar)’), and much more seldom CVCC (disk ‘discuss’, taks ‘tax’, Fritz ‘Fritz’, Hans ‘Hans’).

There is a clear preference for syllables of the type CV over syllables without an onset or with complex onsets and codas.

5. Noun phrase ⇫ ¶

The great majority of nouns are invariable, e.g. yon zanmi ‘one friend’, twa zanmi ‘three friends’. There are only a restricted number of gendered nouns referring to human beings that show morphological variation, as in milat ‘mulatto man’ vs. milatrès ‘mulatto woman’.

Natural gender for animals is expressed through composition, preposing the words mal ‘male’ or femèl ‘female’ to the name of the animal: mal chen ‘male dog’, mal kabrit ‘billy goat’ vs. femèl chat ‘female cat’ (cf. Fattier 2007).

Generic nouns are not marked, as in the following sentence:

Some determiners precede the noun (they may or may not be followed by other intervening words). This is the case with the indefinite determiner yon (generally pronounced as [õ]), e.g. yon kay ‘a house’, not to be confused with the numeral (youn or yonn). The indefinite determiner does not have a plural form. The definite determiner and demonstrative follow the noun or noun phrase. The definite determiner has five contextual variants, e.g. ti nèg la ‘the small boy’, zo a ‘the bone’, pon an ‘the bridge’, fanm nan ‘the woman’, mont lan ‘the watch’. For the plural, the form yo is used, which marks definiteness and plurality at the same time (DEF.PL). It is postposed to the noun, as in ti nèg yo ‘the small boys’. In some dialects in southern Haiti (Fattier 1998(2): 838), definiteness and plurality are each marked explicitly: ti nèg la yo [small man DEF PL] ‘the small boys’. This is a more conservative variant.

Certain contexts forbid the use of the plural, e.g.

The adnominal demonstrative is marked by means of sa a versus sa yo, e.g.

There are two pronominal demonstratives; one is realized identically to the adnominal demonstrative sa a, and the other one is realized using sa:

All numerals precede the noun, as in dizuit liv (‘eighteen books’).

Adjectives are mostly postposed to the noun, e.g. yon kay wouj ‘a red house’, but there are some adjectives (generally evaluative adjectives) which are preposed, e.g. yon bèl chemiz ‘a nice shirt’, yon gwo kay ‘a big house’. It is possible to express different degrees of intensity, for example, higher intensity: Li wouj anpil ‘She is very red’.

Comparison of equality is expressed with the help of tankou:

Comparison of inequality (comparative of superiority) is most often realized with the help of the discontinuous marker pi … pase, of which the first element is optional, though the standard is obligatory, e.g.

The comparative of inferiority is formed by the negation of the comparative of equality with the help of the negator pa.

The dependent personal pronouns do not distinguish between subject and object pronouns (cf. Table 3). They do not inflect for gender, and all of them have a reduced form, which is extremely common in spoken language. When they are not stressed, these pronouns often cliticize on the preceding stressed unit and form one stressed unit together with it. Proclisis and enclisis are frequent phenomena, as in the following example, which combines both (cf. m’and l):

When a double-object construction has a pronominal recipient and a pronominal theme, the recipient cliticizes on the verb, and the theme follows, e.g.

It is remarkable that there is no distinction between the personal pronouns for the first and second person plural. Generally, the situational context and/or the cotext (spoken or written) make it possible to resolve ambiguities, e.g.

Independent personal pronouns are stressed and never have a reduced form (see Table 3). The second person singular is distinguished by an extra-long form wou, with an extra onset consonant, e.g.

Adnominal possessives have exactly the same form as dependent personal pronouns (see Table 3). They are always postposed to the noun (whether full or reduced); they often show reduced forms, which form a stress unit with the preceding noun:

In cases where the context requires precision, it is possible to have a definite determiner follow the adnominal possessive: figi li a [face POSS.3SG DEF] ‘his/her face’.

The pronominal possessive is constructed with the help of the special morpheme pa: Pa m nan pi bèl [POSS POSS.1SG DEF more beautiful] ‘Mine is more beautiful’. This morpheme can also be used in contexts where the possessor is stressed: Liv pa m nan bèl [book POSS POSS.1SG DEF beau] ‘My book is beautiful’.

The word order for the possessor noun phrase is possessee-possessor, without a marking of the possessor:

In the variety spoken in northern Haiti, the same order is used, but the possessor is marked with the preposition a as in the example kay a nonm nan ‘this man’s house’.

6. Verb phrase ⇫ ¶

Haitian Creole has at least ten tense, aspect, and mood markers including the zero marker. Table 4 is based on the descriptions provided by DeGraff (2007), Fattier (1998), and Dejean (1982). The following combinations of markers have been attested: t(e) + ap, te + a, te + av + ap, ap + fèk + sot, te + fèk + ap.

A limited class of verbal lexemes can undergo elision: They have two forms, a long form and a short form, e.g. konnen vs. konn. This variation is bound to complex rules.

If the noun phrase is a 2nd person singular or plural pronoun, the sentence becomes imperative when the pronoun is left out: Ou chita. (‘You are seated.’) vs. Chita non! (‘Be seated!’). Partly for reasons of politeness, the interjection non is frequently used to reinforce or weaken the imperative forms.

A special morpheme (annou/ann) is used with first and second person plural:

A sentence can be put into a negative form by means of the negative particle pa:

Haitian Creole has several particles which contribute to the modality of the sentence. The modal particle ka (variants are kap, kab, kapab) expresses either ability, permission (deontic), or probability (epistemic), as in examples (21)–(23):

The position of the negative marker is distinctive in the following two sentences (ability vs. epistemic modality): Li pa ka vini (‘She cannot come’) and Li ka pa vini (‘She might not come’).

If the predicate is clefted in a focus construction, the modal particle is not copied:

Another modal particle is sa ‘can’ (ability):

In the following sentence, the co-occurrence of the modals pou (obligation) and sa can be observed:

There is another deontic modal fòk ‘to have to’ (a variant is fo):

The modal verb mèt ‘may’ is used for expressing permission; it can also mark possibility:

The modal verb dwe ‘must, have to; may be’ (variants are dwo, do) has an epistemic reading (probability) in the following sentence:

In contrast, the sentence Bouki dwe vini, as cited by DeGraff (2007: 108), is ambiguous between deontic (‘Bouki ought to come’) and epistemic interpretation (‘It is likely that Bouki has come’).

7. Simple sentences ⇫ ¶

The word order in simple declarative sentences is Subject-Verb-Object (both with nominal and pronominal objects):

There are two ditransitive constructions: The double-object construction (with a nominal or pronominal recipient) as shown in examples (32) and (33), and the indirect object construction with the preposition ba ‘to, for’ as illustrated in example (34):

There are also simple sentences where a nominal, an adjectival, or a prepositional phrase can be found in the place of a verb-phrase. TAM markers always precede such phrases. The examples (35–37) are taken from DeGraff (2007: 104):

8. Interrogative and focus constructions ⇫ ¶

For polar questions, two structures are used in Haitian Creole: One that combines interrogative intonation and the use of the morpheme èske, and one that only uses intonation. In content questions, a particular intonation pattern is associated with pronominal forms which are mostly analytical, composed of ki and another nominal or pronominal element: ki moun (‘who?’), ki sa (‘what?’), ki kote (‘where?’), ki bò (‘where?’), ki lè (‘when?’), etc. (Fattier 2005). These forms most often occupy the sentence-initial focus position (as is appropriate for their focus meaning), while the presupposed part is placed in second position.

However, another word order is also possible for subject questions:

Likewise, the word order can be changed for object questions – even if clause-initial position is by far the most frequent word order for the question form (ki) sa (ki is optional in focus position, but it is not optional in final position), the final position of the question constituent is also possible:

The same holds when adverbial adjuncts of place, time, etc. are questioned, where initial sentence position is favoured:

The element ye in (41) has been analyzed as a resumptive pronoun by DeGraff (2007).

Focus constructions are realized as cleft constructions. It is possible to focus the subject with the help of se ... ki as in (43), and to focus various complements and verbs with the help of se (see examples 44 and 45):

9. Complex sentences ⇫ ¶

When two independent simple clauses are coordinated (asyndetically or syndetically), the verb is never gapped but must be repeated, as noted by Dejean (1982: 36), who furnishes all examples below. The link may be explicitly marked by a conjunction such as e or epi:

Among the subordinate clauses, one can distinguish relative clauses introduced by the subordinating morpheme ki/k, which is possibly a relative pronoun with a subject function. As DeGraff writes justly (2007: 110), “the status of ki […] is debatable […]” (he analyzes this morpheme as a complementizer):

When the noun is definite, the relative clause follows it immediately, separating it from the definite determiner:

Other relative clauses do not have a subordinating morpheme.

When the relative clause follows the noun directly (when the latter is a subject), the morpheme la or one of its allomorphs (here an) is used to mark the relative clause as well as the topicality of this clause:

A complement clause is only used if this clause can be analyzed as a direct object of the verb:

An interrogative complement clause can be introduced by the conjunction si or by interrogative adverbs (kote, ki lè, poukisa, etc.):