# The Haitan Creole language had everything revitalized so why didn't it revive? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 24, 2023, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-haitan-creole-language-had-everything-revitalized-so-why-didnt-it-revive/989051 "2023-08-24T20:59:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jagraze1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jagraze1/32/14870_2.png) [@Jagraze1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jagraze1)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2023, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-haitan-creole-language-had-everything-revitalized-so-why-didnt-it-revive/989051/1 "2023-08-24T20:59:46Z")
So I just read that the Haitan Creole language was in decline due to the colonization of French. It dominated Haitan Creole as a language, leading to its decline. Then I also read that there was a revival effort to increase the use of the language. But even today, many Haitis favor French, even Government does. Why though? Very few speak French and yet it serves the language of education in all schools. Why not Haitan Creole, the language everyone speaks? [https://diginole.lib.fsu.edu/islandora/object/fsu:667617/datastream/PDF/view](https://steamcommunity.com/linkfilter/?url=https://diginole.lib.fsu.edu/islandora/object/fsu:667617/datastream/PDF/view) [https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/08/03/haiti-language-education-school-french-haitian-creole/](https://steamcommunity.com/linkfilter/?url=https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/08/03/haiti-language-education-school-french-haitian-creole/) > **[Haiti is teaching kids in the wrong language](https://theweek.com/articles/467846/haiti-teaching-kids-wrong-language)** > > Most Haitians speak Haitian Creole. And yet, the country's traditional language of education is French — which less than 10 percent of Haitians speak fluently ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2023, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-haitan-creole-language-had-everything-revitalized-so-why-didnt-it-revive/989051/2 "2023-08-24T22:14:39Z")
I read your links and they seem to answer the question pretty well – elitism, inertia, and poverty. They also say that this is changing, especially in recent years, for all the reasons you state. ---
**Author:** ![Jagraze1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jagraze1/32/14870_2.png) [@Jagraze1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jagraze1)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2023, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-haitan-creole-language-had-everything-revitalized-so-why-didnt-it-revive/989051/3 "2023-08-24T22:16:12Z")
Yeah so? French is not spoken well by the speakers of Haiti so why waste time learning French instead when Haitis speak Creole better? It’s just awful! ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2023, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-haitan-creole-language-had-everything-revitalized-so-why-didnt-it-revive/989051/4 "2023-08-24T22:31:23Z")
Sure is. ---
**Author:** ![Jagraze1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jagraze1/32/14870_2.png) [@Jagraze1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jagraze1)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2023, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-haitan-creole-language-had-everything-revitalized-so-why-didnt-it-revive/989051/5 "2023-08-24T22:58:26Z")
Yeah so why isn’t Government doing anything abou thatt? Currently kis are being beaten and thrashed for speaking Creole. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2023, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-haitan-creole-language-had-everything-revitalized-so-why-didnt-it-revive/989051/6 "2023-08-24T23:14:54Z")
> [@Jagraze1](#): > > so why isn’t Government doing anything abou thatt? It’s basically a nation run by a mafia that oversees the movement of drugs and other illicit items/persons between South and North America. They aren’t really interested in having a well-educated and organized populace. It’s a similar deal with North Korea. What’s ostensibly a government is more practically viewed as a mafia that’s been able to take over the country and use it as a staging ground for illegal business. ---
**Author:** ![Jagraze1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jagraze1/32/14870_2.png) [@Jagraze1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jagraze1)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2023, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-haitan-creole-language-had-everything-revitalized-so-why-didnt-it-revive/989051/7 "2023-08-24T23:20:00Z")
So what we do? Just let the kids get beaten for spekaing Creole? ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2023, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-haitan-creole-language-had-everything-revitalized-so-why-didnt-it-revive/989051/8 "2023-08-24T23:23:40Z")
Because the Haitian ruling elites from the very start have kept French as a means for gatekeeping the elite status. To be sure, both Creole and French are official languages and documents and communications are in Creole. (note: Creole came about from the fusion of colonial French with the various languages of the enslaved Africans over three centuries, evolving into a language in its own right, like New Guinean Pidgin) But after independence, the members of the Haitian social elite, who were of mixed race or black but educated, and had been educated in French, found that it suited them just fine and dandy to have the language in which the elite conducts business continue to be French, to the exclusion of the Creole-speaking masses. _“Why”_? Because by and large the ruling classes in Haiti in the past century have not given a \*&^%$ about what’s best for their masses but for themselves. Mind you, in Haiti there _is_ education in Creole. But the public education for the common people, like just about everything public for the common people in Haiti, is just horribly poor when it exists at all. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2023, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-haitan-creole-language-had-everything-revitalized-so-why-didnt-it-revive/989051/9 "2023-08-24T23:25:57Z")
> [@Jagraze1](#): > > So I just read that the Haitan Creole language was in decline due to the colonization of French. I think you are a little confused here. Haitian Creole wouldn’t even exist if not for French colonialism. It is a French dialect. It is the language originally used by field slaves deprived of education so it is maligned as the language of the uneducated. Inversely, French is considered the language of the educated. The educated leaders in Haiti got to their positions through a French based education and they are biased toward that language. ---
**Author:** ![Jagraze1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jagraze1/32/14870_2.png) [@Jagraze1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jagraze1)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2023, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-haitan-creole-language-had-everything-revitalized-so-why-didnt-it-revive/989051/10 "2023-08-24T23:28:13Z")
Bias towards haitan Creole too? ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2023, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-haitan-creole-language-had-everything-revitalized-so-why-didnt-it-revive/989051/11 "2023-08-24T23:29:47Z")
> [@Jagraze1](#): > > Yeah so why isn’t Government doing anything abou thatt? Well, why isn’t any country’s government doing anything about minority languages diminishing in usage? So many European villages have a “heart language” that’s dying out: Macedonian in Bulgaria, Livonian in Latvia, Low Saxon in the Netherlands, and less than 2 million people there or in Belgium speak Frisian or Limburgish… which stinks. I’m sure you’ve heard the statistic showing that there are more new Klingon speakers than Navajo ones… ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2023, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-haitan-creole-language-had-everything-revitalized-so-why-didnt-it-revive/989051/12 "2023-08-24T23:30:06Z")
The educated are biased _against_ Haitian Creole. Toward standard French. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2023, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-haitan-creole-language-had-everything-revitalized-so-why-didnt-it-revive/989051/13 "2023-08-24T23:30:42Z")
> [@Jagraze1](#): > > So what we do? Just let the kids get beaten for spekaing Creole? Practically speaking, you would need to invade the country, occupy it, and rebuild the state over the course of several generations. That’s a crime. All we can really do is hope that the Haitians throw their leaders out, elect someone honest to run the place, that he really is as honest as they believe, and that he’s able to maintain power long enough to improve their systems. On the day that any of that seems to be happening, we can be there ready to help. Otherwise, we mostly have to wait and watch them all be miserable. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2023, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-haitan-creole-language-had-everything-revitalized-so-why-didnt-it-revive/989051/14 "2023-08-24T23:32:38Z")
> [@digs](#): > > Well, why isn’t any country’s government doing anything about minority languages diminishing in usage? Well, but this is a different case – this is the Establishment in a country deprecating the daily-use language of the vast majority of the people. ---
**Author:** ![Jagraze1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jagraze1/32/14870_2.png) [@Jagraze1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jagraze1)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2023, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-haitan-creole-language-had-everything-revitalized-so-why-didnt-it-revive/989051/15 "2023-08-24T23:32:41Z")
Then why are they still teaching French? ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2023, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-haitan-creole-language-had-everything-revitalized-so-why-didnt-it-revive/989051/16 "2023-08-24T23:33:25Z")
Because the people who make those decisions were taught French. ---
**Author:** ![Jagraze1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jagraze1/32/14870_2.png) [@Jagraze1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jagraze1)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2023, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-haitan-creole-language-had-everything-revitalized-so-why-didnt-it-revive/989051/17 "2023-08-24T23:34:50Z")
Actually, according to some resources, it claims they were biased towards Haitan Creole. French colonialism did create a bias for that language since many considered it as broken french. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2023, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-haitan-creole-language-had-everything-revitalized-so-why-didnt-it-revive/989051/18 "2023-08-24T23:36:28Z")
OK, Jagraze1, we may have a language problem of our own here: in English, “bias” means a prejudice **that can be in favor OR against**. You can be biased FOR French because you think it’s good, and biased AGAINST Creole because you think it’s bad. ---
**Author:** ![Jagraze1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jagraze1/32/14870_2.png) [@Jagraze1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jagraze1)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2023, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-haitan-creole-language-had-everything-revitalized-so-why-didnt-it-revive/989051/19 "2023-08-24T23:37:21Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > You can be biased FOR French because you think it’s good, and biased AGAINST Creole because you think it’s bad. So in this case, for means you think it’s good and if you are biased against, yo think it’s bad? ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2023, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-haitan-creole-language-had-everything-revitalized-so-why-didnt-it-revive/989051/20 "2023-08-24T23:37:39Z")
> [@Jagraze1](#): > > Actually, according to some resources, it claims they were biased towards Haitan Creole I think you are having trouble with the word “bias”. A bias toward something is “favoring it”. A bias against something is “not favoring it”. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-haitan-creole-language-had-everything-revitalized-so-why-didnt-it-revive/989051.md?page=2)