by Hyp Notica » October 3rd, 2004, 10:44 pm
GENERAL INFO
okay, CREOLE is the title given to the new language that is created from the blend of 2 other languages. Martinique, (another caribbean island) speaks a creole too: african (former slave language) mixed with colonialist (in this case french, trader language). its a whole new language that has roots in both, but is really its own lauguage because its different to that point.
politically though, these are not recognized as languages, and merely referred to as dialects, because rights go along with acknowledgement, and governments usually try to downplay rights of the oppressed, further marginalizing, purshing conformity and assimilation. Creoles are oral languages, passed down from ear to mouth, which american linguist-anthropologists have begun documenting, inventing a written form based on phonetics (way it sounds).
in miami, there are so many haitians, that in neighborhood clinics, you can see english, spanish and haitian creole up on the wall. creoles from different countries are different too. either because the slaves of the time were brought from different areas in africa or from different tribes with different dialects, because the language just evolved over time in a different way, or because they were brought by different colonialists (COLONIALISTS=european settlers who brought slaves to america- back in the day, and enslaved or killed indigenous (natives) who were already there).
there are many different creoles in existance, which are completely independant languages, not understood by other people who speak either of the 2 (or more) lanuguages from which the creole emerged. based on the definition above, white people in louisianna who speak that totaly fucced up french that no one else knows what the hell theyre talking about, call it creole. so do some black people in louisianna who originally came from Congo ect. in africa, just like haitians did but have their own creole.
other exmaples:
1.Creole of Cape Verde (West Coast african islands, afric. + Portuguese).
2.Garifuna= creole of Honduras & Guatemala(africans who were first brought to Trinidad, then to Central america, afric. + spanish)
3. Miskito= creole of Honduras+ Nicaragua (african + Spanish, plus a little Brittish pirate mixed in.. have words based in all 3!)
The thing about Haitian creole, is that haiti shares an island, where the only other country is Dominican Republic, so theres especially a lot of spanish influence, and haitians have to take spanish class to graduate high school, same way most americans do, so they learn at least a lil basics.
This one's for dem shitstem kids:
Back in the day our parents used to take care of us- Look at em now, they even f_ckin scared of us- Callin the city 4 help cuz they can't maintain- DAMN..Sh_t done changed!
-Notorious B.I.G