Haitian Creole released!

[MatOzone]

Today, 2022/02/22, it has been released in beta, bravo!

Haitian Creole for English speakers

About the course

Learn the revolutionary language of the first Black independent nation and discover the culture of the Haitian people! Haitian Creole (Kreyòl Ayisyen) is spoken by over 12 million people worldwide, making it the most-spoken creole language worldwide. This course for beginner and intermediate learners provides a foundation for conversations with Haitians in Haiti and throughout the Haitian diaspora.

Course contributors:

NyToussaint (Contributed 79%) & AnaicaSain (Contributed 13%)

[Fnirk1]

And here is a blog post about the language:

https://blog.duolingo.com/haitian-creole-duolingo/

[panyamnyenyekevu]

Hooray, you guys!! Woot!!!

[stephenmatlock]

Thank you for setting this up.

[jzsuzsi]

Course contributors for Haitian Creole (at the time when Duo stopped the volunteer system)

NyToussaint
AnaicaSain
CindyArias07
Nandre7
RebekahAnt2
NicoleDurh4
CecileAcci

And Nandre is a professor of Haitian Creole

[LizLizLiz]

I am SO excited about the new Duolingo Haitian Creole course! It is very fun and interesting for me, as I am an advanced French speaker.

I zipped through level one of the 2 unit tree in a few days and hope to complete level two for both units very soon.

My next project is finding where I might actually practice speaking the language.

[Kdhy11]

Thank you so much for the work that went into preparing the course. Mèsi! I'm almost to level 5 (golden) on all of the Preliminary Level, looking forward to the release of Level 1 and more material in higher levels. And thanks for the reference to the blog post.

The cultural additions are one of the first things I noticed about the Haitian course that make it stand out from the rest of the DUO courses I've taken. The closest comparison would be with Esperanto (a language which has never been used for domination of another culture! so it has something in common with Kreyòl Aysyen). I've enjoyed having to look up foods that just can't be translated because there's no anglophone equivalent, and tracking down authentic recipes to figure out what the foods might taste like. And I have really enjoyed trying my hand at some Haitian recipes -- the flavors are amazing!!! As the course grows, I'm looking forward to learning more about the culture as a whole.

[panyamnyenyekevu]

. The closest comparison would be with Esperanto (a language which has never been used for domination of another culture! so it has something in common with Kreyòl Aysyen).

In the past week, the New York Times has produced a very interesting article about how Haiti is the only country that has had to pay reparations to its former enslavers! https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/20/worl ... rance.html

[Kdhy11]

Thanks for the referral to the New York Times article -- it's a major research piece, worth the time to read through. If you input the complete title of the article (In 1791, enslaved Haitians did the seemingly impossible. They ousted their French masters and founded a nation) it is also possible to find mirror sites that do not require paywall to access.

Full credit to the New York Times for investing so much in bringing this complex story to the world. I hope they win a / several press awards for the work.

Many years ago, I read Raphael Confiant's Commandeur du Sucre as part of my studies in French and about France. It seems to be still available, but looks like French and Italian editions only. Set in Martinique, Confiant wrote this book in French but also writes in Kreyol. He is very clear about the horrors of the plantation life.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/261 ... r-du-sucre
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphaël_Confiant