writing the journey
I’ve come to know many Haitians who are delightfully unique in their outlook on life as they are in their accents and vocabulary, which gives me no end of headaches as I try to figure out yet another idiom or unique word play I need to understand so that I can grasp their meaning.
Adventures in translation This was my “wrapped the chain around the axle” moment today. My assignment this month is to … More
Back in July or August of 2023 my left thigh started bothering me. Certain kinds of clothing irritated the heck out of it, but even without anything touching it, I’d have this numb-prickliness
My previous post was
Why does the world exist the way it does that a people confined to a third of an island in the Caribbean are seen as less-thans? How do they grapple with the faith that comes from white people to their land, given to them to give them hope, and yet used as a tool by those same white people to call them despicable names and degrade them?
I wanted to reflect upon what I learned this year, and also think of how my knowledge will affect my choices and behaviors in the new year…
I had already decided to make my order entirely in Haitian Creole. Which was a good choice, because the staff at the restaurant were not speaking English.
The oppressing side in its acts of oppression is doing wrong by nature. There is no “just” oppression. Whether it is cruel or superficially “kind,” oppression is wrong and cannot be redeemed either by language or a reduction in cruelty.
Well, I will continue my journey. It’s been a wonderful adventure that not only has helped open up a language and a culture and a people I never knew before, but also has changed me in how I see the world and understand those who live in.
in those decades of following Jesus, I’ve listened to uncountable sermons and Bible studies, often led by people with great earnestness, who have said “oh, if you only knew the Greek/Hebrew/Aramaic you’d see stuff in the scriptures that are hidden to you because you only know English.”
It is weird to me that I can read these materials and kinda get the gist of them, but golly they are way more complex (to me) as an English-speaking student who has so little comprehension of Haitian culture and idioms.
It’s been a while since I last updated what I’m doing as I’ve been on the journey to learn Haitian … More
Man, today was rough. My tutor and I talked lasted week about my lessons. (This is my third tutor.) I … More
I think I’ve hit another wall. The first wall was after the first month or so of learning kreyòl ayisyen … More
Another update on my language journey: Last night I was given a text to read that I’d never seen before. … More
“Dèyè mòn gen mòn.” This is one of the very first phrases I learned in my Haitian Creole book. (In … More
So I just had a most excellent lesson with my teacher today. We “met” on a Discord server in a … More
This is going to be a long post at the behest of some others who want to know what tools … More
Listen, this is hard work. Not just the language. That’s hard because it’s new. Learning a new language means learning … More
More than 190 days now of learning Haitian Creole.
A few things I’ve learned along the way, in no particular order:
#AprannKreyòl #KreyòlAyisyen
Learning kreyòl ayisyen is a challenge, no getting around that. But eventually, it does come together!
Creole is the language of the people, made by the people. It’s not a language that was developed by the elites. It’s a language hammered out to help enslaved people from Africa find a way to communicate to each other as they were deliberately isolated from their own people to keep them incapable of resisting their enslavement by building a movement to overthrow their enslavers.
“Am I fluent yet?”
The answer is, of course, “No, not yet.”
But I did have a good session with my instructor today. I am learning kreyòl and I am speaking kreyòl.
And I will take that and hold onto it.
Now, I’m not dekouraje paske mo yo se difisil pou m konprann, Ignorance is part of learning, and I look forward to it. But this stuff still surprises me. Well, I’ll keep plowing/ploughing through this book, and I look forward to feeling ignorant again when the next book comes.
And I know I would drown in any secondary school in Haiti. Tèt mwen anpil chaje.
Learning to speak/read/write/hear Haitian has not only opened a door to a new language but also opened a new world of culture and history and social organization and food and music and art and religion that I simply wasn’t aware of. #Haitian #Kreyòl
The more I dig into this language the more I find that I do not know anything at all. My initial appraisal of the language and the way to learn it is nearly entirely false. The initial methodology of saying simple phrases is helpful to build confidence, but Haitians do not talk like that.
And as language is used to mark who’s in and who’s out, so it is used in context between those who are within the culture of Haiti and those who are, like me, without.
