Language Scientific’s Haitian Creole Translation Services

Language Scientific provides premier Haitian Creole translation services, supplying technical, medical and scientific translation, localization and interpreting into and out of Haitian Creole. We are a US-based language services company serving over 1,500 global corporations. Our specialization, focus, industry-leading quality management standards and customer-centered attitude have earned us the trust of many of the world’s best technology, engineering, bio-medical and pharmaceutical companies.

Language Scientific has two divisions—Technical and Engineering Localization and Translation Services Division and Medical and Pharmaceutical Localization and Translation Services Division. Both groups provide a full range of Haitian Creole language services including:

We offer a unique depth of subject-matter expertise via our Advanced Scientific Knowledge network (ASKnetwork™) and globalization know-how for companies in the Aerospace & Defense, Chemical, Clinical Research, Energy, Healthcare, Industrial Manufacturing, Medical Device, Pharmaceutical, Technology and related industries. Our ASKnetwork™ of over 6,000 specialists comprises multilingual engineers, doctors and scientists working in over 75 countries on 5 continents.

Language Scientific’s unique Accreditation Program for Technical and Medical Translators, along with a rigorous Quality Management System, ensures the quality standards that our clients have come to depend on. Language Scientific’s Quality Management System is ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 17100:2015 certified.

At Language Scientific, we are driven by the mission to set the new Standard of Quality for technical translation and localization. It is this mission that drives our success and sets us apart as a company. When you need precise global communication, Language Scientific is the clear choice.

Haitian Creole Language Statistics/Facts

Haitian Creole, referred to as Creole/ Kreyole, is a French-based Creole language spoken by an estimated 9.7 to twelve million people, that is, the entire population of Haiti as well as by nearly two to three million Haitian communities living in several nearby countries, among them Dominican Republic, which had 159,000 by (1987), Bahamas, about 200,000 in New York, USA, a smaller number in Canada and Puerto Rico, Cuba and French Guiana, Cayman Islands, Guadeloupe and Belize. Haitian Creole borrows from 18th century French and several Central and West African languages such as Wolof, Fon and Ewe as well as Arabic.

Although 90% of Haitian Creole is based on French, it differs from standard French because of the lack of grammatical gender and verb inflection. The Haitian Creole language is outstanding for being the most widely spoken Creole language in the world. If you are already familiar with French, you should find this language easy to learn.

Due to efforts of Félix Morisseau-Leroy, Haitian Creole has been recognized as an official language since 1961 when it joined French as the second language of instruction in Haiti’s education system since its independence in 1804. Haitian Creole was granted legal and educational status in Haiti though it acquired a lower status than standard French. Its official status was maintained under Haiti’s 1987 constitution. The use of Haitian Creole in literature has risen since its orthography was standardized in 1979. Morisseau was one of the first and most influential Haitian Creole authors. Today Haitian Creole is prevalent in poetry, grammar and the mass media.

Haitian Creole Dialects

DialectDetails
Main Dialect DivisionsCorrespond to the regions of the country: West (including the speech of Port-au-Prince); South; and North, Northwest and Center (Hall 1953). The dialect of Port-au-Prince provides the reference point for other dialects, which are differentiated by their sound features and vocabulary.
SaamakaA dialect developed from both Portuguese and English languages. It is estimated that Saamaka has 30% Portuguese vocabulary, 70% English and is 10% African. And this is considered a “radical” mix. The Saamaka speakers live along the Suriname River and are descendants of slaves who fled the plantations already in the 17th and 18th centuries.
FablasPlateau Haitian Creole was developed out of Linguistic influences from Wolof (Benjamin 1956), Fon, and Ewe (C. Lefebvre) of West Africa by slaves who had fled from their Masters.  According to van de Vate, Fablas had not been influenced by European language forms.
French CreoleAlso referred to as Louisiana Creole French. It is a French based language spoken by the Creole people of the South and South West of the State of Louisiana, and in Northern California (San Francisco Bay, Sacramento, Plumas, Tehama, Mono and Yuba Counties). The dialect is a merger of and Latin American, French and African dialects.
Faublas-PressoirTradtional writing system. Adapted version of oldest Haitian Creole from the French spelling conventions and modified by McConnell, Laubach, Pressoir and Faublas.

Countries Where Haitian Creole Is Spoken

  • Bahamas
  • France
  • Jamaica
  • Turks and Caicos Islands
  • Canada (Quebec)
  • French Guiana
  • Martinique
  • United States
  • Cayman Islands
  • Guadeloupe
  • Puerto Rico
  • Venezuela
  • Cuba
  • Haiti
  • Saint Martin
  • Dominican Republic
  • Ivory Coast
  • Trinidad and Tobago

Haitian Country Data

Country: Haiti

Capital: Port-au-Prince
Population: 10,646,714
Semi-Presidential Republic: President Jovenel MOISE
Currency: Haitian Gourde
GDP (ppp): $1,800
Unemployment: 40.6%
Government Type: Semi-Presidential Republic
Industries: Textiles, sugar refining, flour milling, agriculture and cement. Tourism is the leading source of revenue for Haiti.

Located in the Greater Antillean archipelago, the Republic of Haiti is a Caribbean country with a population between 9.7-12 million people situated in Hispaniola where the Dominican Republic is also found.

Haiti is a semi-presidential republic, multiparty democracy where the president is the head of state and is directly and popularly elected. The current president, Jocelerme Privert was elected in 2016. The Prime Minister acts as head of government and is appointed by the President from the majority party in the National Assembly. Together they exercise Executive power. Legislative authority is exercised by both government and the two chambers of the National Assembly. The government is unitary and rules through departments.

Unemployment and underemployment are both rampant, with more than 2/3 of the labor force in the informal sector. Tourism is the leading source of revenue for the country. Two-fifths of all Haitians depend on the agriculture, engaging mainly as small-scale subsistence farmers. The Haitian Hemispheric Opportunity through Partnership Encouragement (HOPE) Act, of December 2006, has boosted apparel exports and investment by providing duty-free access to the US. Haiti suffers from a lack of investment, partly due to limited infrastructure and a lack of security.

Departments/Regions of Haiti

Haiti has ten administrative departments/regions with capitals as follows:

  • Nord-Ouest (Port-de-Paix)
  • Nord (Cap-Haitien)
  • Nord-Est (Fort-Liberte)
  • Artibonite (Gonaives)
  • Centre (Hinche)
  • Ouest (Porte-au-Prince)
  • Grand’Anase(Jeremie)
  • Nippes(Miragoane)
  • Sud(Les Cayes)
  • Sud-Est(Jacmel)

The departments are further divided into 41 arrondisements and 133 communes. These serve as second and third level administrative divisions.

Haitian Creole Language History

A Creole is a language that has developed from other languages, but has been localized and thus internalized by children as their vernacular. Theories about Creole languages are varied. Several scientists consider Creoles similar because they originate from African languages, while other linguists see the similarity in their universal grammar; they see Creole languages as the purest examples of universal grammar.

There are many theories on the formation of the Haitian Creole language. One such theory proposes that a type of Creole had started developing on West African trading posts even before the importation of African slaves into the Americas, and that since many of those slaves were being kept for some time near these trading posts before being sent to the Caribbean, they would have learned a rudimentary Creole even before getting there. A second theory claims that Haitian Creole was largely developed locally when slaves speaking languages from the Fon family started to merge them with vocabulary from the French language.

The existence of Haitian Creole during the pre-Columbian era is not known because the Taino Indians, who migrated from India and were the first inhabitants of Haiti, spoke a totally different language from Haitian Creole. The latter was developed by the West African slaves brought to the island by European settlers during slave trade in the 17th century and the French colonization experience.

Haitian Creole is believed by some to be the result of contact between European romance languages, namely French and Spanish, and Ewe, a West African language spoken in Ghana, Togo and Benin. Others believe that it is a derivative of a pidgin spoken by Portuguese and French sailors in the 15th and 16th centuries.

Pseudo-scientific racist theorists are said to have considered Haitian Creole an inferior language to European languages. This misconception was only eradicated by the linguist Noam Chomsky’s concept of language universals which defined language in terms of its semantics and syntax, phonology, morphology and lexicon, and the development of Haitian Creole alphabet. Like other Creoles, Haitian Creole has been regarded negatively because of its perceived relation to pidgin and the difficulty in establishing its origin.

Haitian Creole is defined according to the universal components of language, namely; syntax, semantics, lexicon, morphology and phonology. Even though its syntax, semantics and morphology (grammar) differ substantially from French, it is considered a member of the group of French-based Creoles since a large section of its lexicon comes directly from the French language.

The Haitian Creole language is composed of 32 sounds based on official orthography and Haitian Creole alphabet: a, an, b, ch, d ,e, en ,f, g, h ,l ,k, m , n ng, o ,on ,oun ,p, r, s, t, ui ,v, w, y, z.