The history of Haiti has been troubled by slavery, poverty, political instability and natural disasters. Leadership of the country has changed hands many times through military coups, disillusioning the Haitian people from their government and causing their national identity to fracture. In the past Haitian Creole was looked down upon by the elite as the language of the masses while the viewed their own language, French, to be the superior language. The 1979 constitution dubbed French the "Langue d'instruction," (the language of instruction) while it called Haitian Creole an "outil d'enseignement," (tool of education). Efforts throughout Haitian history to bring speakers of Haitian Creole into the French-speaking fold have been largely unsuccessful and generally biased against the perceived inferiority of Haitian Creole (Hebblethwaite+ Haitian Constitutions).
It wasn't until recently that the elite of Haiti began to realize that excluding Haitian Creole as a legitimate language was causing the state serious damage. An attempt was made to rectify this in 1987 when the most recent version of the constitution was drafted. In this new constitution, Haitian Creole was dubbed the "sole language that unites all Haitians." While this is a step in the right direction, there is still a lot of work to be done before Haitian Creole is given the linguistic recognition it deserves, both in Haiti and worldwide. Unlike some regional dialects that are dying out due to another imposing language, Haitian Creole shows no signs of disappearing. Today Haitian Creole is the spoken language of 95% of Haitians (Hebblethwaite).
It may help Haiti, as it attempts to modernize and pull itself out of poverty, to teach French to Haitians but no progress will be made without fully recognizing the language of Haitian Creole. Trying to impose another language that has significant syntactical and linguistic differences would be a great detriment to any attempts at modernization or to educate the population. One difficulty that faces Haiti in recognizing Haitian Creole is that there's not yet a complete standardized version of Haitian Creole. While there is consensus on the majority of the syntactical rules and constructs of the Language there are still variants around the language that make it a difficult language to write in, especially as there is still debate among scholars on certain subjects of pronunciation, such as front rounded vowels or the rhotic ɣ (Pendziak).
Perhaps in the future, due to even more intense contact between the two languages, French and Haitian Creole will merge further in Haiti until they share as many syntactical similarities as they do lexical. Due to the fact that the vast majority of the Haitians are speakers of solely Haitian Creole, it is unlikely that French will win out syntactically, even though it is considered the prestige language by many, especially the elite.
It wasn't until recently that the elite of Haiti began to realize that excluding Haitian Creole as a legitimate language was causing the state serious damage. An attempt was made to rectify this in 1987 when the most recent version of the constitution was drafted. In this new constitution, Haitian Creole was dubbed the "sole language that unites all Haitians." While this is a step in the right direction, there is still a lot of work to be done before Haitian Creole is given the linguistic recognition it deserves, both in Haiti and worldwide. Unlike some regional dialects that are dying out due to another imposing language, Haitian Creole shows no signs of disappearing. Today Haitian Creole is the spoken language of 95% of Haitians (Hebblethwaite).
It may help Haiti, as it attempts to modernize and pull itself out of poverty, to teach French to Haitians but no progress will be made without fully recognizing the language of Haitian Creole. Trying to impose another language that has significant syntactical and linguistic differences would be a great detriment to any attempts at modernization or to educate the population. One difficulty that faces Haiti in recognizing Haitian Creole is that there's not yet a complete standardized version of Haitian Creole. While there is consensus on the majority of the syntactical rules and constructs of the Language there are still variants around the language that make it a difficult language to write in, especially as there is still debate among scholars on certain subjects of pronunciation, such as front rounded vowels or the rhotic ɣ (Pendziak).
Perhaps in the future, due to even more intense contact between the two languages, French and Haitian Creole will merge further in Haiti until they share as many syntactical similarities as they do lexical. Due to the fact that the vast majority of the Haitians are speakers of solely Haitian Creole, it is unlikely that French will win out syntactically, even though it is considered the prestige language by many, especially the elite.