What language is this?

Factual Questions
1

From my son’s FCAT results, part is in a language I don’t recognize:

*Che paran/responsab legal,

FCAT 2.0 fe pati de yon plan leta Florida mete sou pye pou l amelyore rannman elev grasa you mwayen pu mezire sikse elev yo avek de estanda pi difisil onivo matye akademik. Objektif FCAT 2.0 a se pou asire ke lekol piblik Florida yo ap founi elev ou a meye edikasyon posib e ke y ap prepare elev ou a komsadwa pou w sa gen sikse nan lavni.*

To me it looks like a cross between French and Turkish. I’m too lasy to try and insert the diacritical marks, but I think that the above should be enough for someone to recognize. Apologies for typos/spelling mistakes. My guess is Serbian since we did have a bunch of Bosnian/Serbian immigrants during the war.

2

Haitian Creole?

3

That’s certainly possible. Even more Haitians in the state than Slavs. Didn’t know it would look so different than French (I know it sounds a good bit different than French).

4

Google Translate confirms Haitian Creole:
Dear Parent / Guardian,

FCAT 2.0 part of a plan of the state of Florida set up to improve student achievement through a medium pu measure success with the most difficult level of standard academic subjects. 2.0 FCAT goals is to ensure that Florida’s public schools will provide your students the best education possible and that will prepare you thoroughly for this success in the future.

5

The reason it looks so different from French is that, unlike the parent language, it’s spelled phonetically. French would look pretty similar if it were spelled the way it sounds.

6

So, how would you

  1. Frenchify that? Which is to say, keep it in Hatian Creole, but follow the French rules for spelling rather than the phonetic spelling?

  2. Translate it to French?

It would be interesting to see the differences.

7

Unfortunately, I don’t know enough to answer, but I can give you an example. The French “parce que” for “because” becomes “paske” in Haitian Creole, which if you think about it, is exactly the way it sounds. I doubt if there’s a complete 1-1 correspondence; if Haitian is indeed a Creole it means other things are mixed in.

8

Well, for example, “Che paran/responsab legal” would be “Cher parent/responsable légal”. “a meye edikasyon posib” - “la meilleure éducation possible”.

Someone who is actually French will probably be better at describing the differences and changes in detail but I studied French for 12 years in school and reading the words out loud I understood most of what the message meant.

9

Here’s the Creole:

Here’s the French version as given by Google Translate.

fe = fait
pati = partie
leta = L’Etat
mete = mettre
sou = sur
pye = pied
pou = pour
amelyore = ameliorer
elev = eleve (the French uses étudiant, an alternative word for student)
mwayen = moyen
mezire = mesurer
sikse = succes
avek = avec
difisil = difficile

etc.

Most of the spelling differences are just phonetic, although some also reflect differences in pronunciation between Creole and French such as dropping an “r”.

10

It is interesting to compare the status of Haitian Creole to Jamaican Patios, a creole language based on English. Because it has a standardized written form and is an official language of Haiti, Haitian Creole is more widely recognized. Jamaican Patois, which differs from English in much the same ways as Haitian Creole does from French, lacks a standard written form and has no official status. If it did, it would perhaps be more widely recognized as a language in its own right.

Here’s a sample of phonetic Jamaican Patois, with an English translation:

11

Here’s a column by Cecil about Jamaican Patois and Haitian Creole: