Zanmi mwen, mwen dezole anpil. Kòm ou dwe byen imajine, se pa yon bon repons moun nan ba ou ditou :-(
"anba jouk poul" (under a chicken's shelter) means a place that doesn't belong in society, a place for worthless people
"jan de istwa sa yo" (from French genre de histoire) → those types of stories
"Lè'w gen jan de istwa sa yo se anba jouk poul pou ka ale di yo souple, se yon sendenden ou ye!! Sanzave, vakabon!!!"
"When you have those types of stories, do not go tell them in public please, you are insignificant! Tramp, vagabond!"
That's pretty harsh. Is that all because of the story? Or, could there be more? (I'm sorry to butt in :)
Haitian Creole ↔ English Reference, Look up Haitian Creole and English Words
"anba jouk poul" (under a chicken's shelter) means a place that doesn't belong in society, a place for worthless people
"jan de istwa sa yo" (from French genre de histoire) → those types of stories
"Lè'w gen jan de istwa sa yo se anba jouk poul pou ka ale di yo souple, se yon sendenden ou ye!! Sanzave, vakabon!!!"
"When you have those types of stories, do not go tell them in public please, you are insignificant! Tramp, vagabond!"
That's pretty harsh. Is that all because of the story? Or, could there be more? (I'm sorry to butt in :)
Haitian Creole ↔ English Reference, Look up Haitian Creole and English Words
Haha, we are good friends. Just jokes :)
ReplyDeleteI am still a bit confused by that sentence. I feel like it is missing a second "ou," which I will indicate below:
"Lè'w gen jan de istwa sa yo se anba jouk poul pou [ou] ka ale di yo souple"
To help me understand, could a more literal translation be:
"When you have those types of stories, it's in a low-society place [you] should/can go tell them, please"
Or is his sentence fine the way it is? Thank you so much!
Mezanmi o! Mwen kontan se sou blag nou te ye.
DeleteKè'm te manke rete lè'm te li sa zanmi'w lan te ekri:)
Mwen t'ap reflechi e mande tèt mwen pouki yon moun ta janm rejte yon lòt konsa. Sa pa't reyèl pou mwen.
...Mwen gen kè sansib (pafwa).
Antouka, sa ou panse a se sa. Fraz zanmi'w lan ekri a merite yon dezyèm [ou] apre [pou]. Si se te mwen ki t'ap ekri fraz sa a, mwen t'ap senpleman mete yon [w].
Dakò,
Also, my "story" was very silly. Just trying to practice certain words and constructions, many of which come from your blog :)
ReplyDeleteCreole deserves better, and hopefully someday I will write lovely works in Creole, but for now I am just trying to form proper sentences:
(two men arguing)
-“’e vre? E ki kado w’ap pote pou mwen sòt yon makouti majik, Papa Nowèl?
-“Se pa yon sèl kichòy ou merite. Pou ou menm, m’ap bwote yon pakèt bèl kalòt, e m’ap fout ou yon aprè lòt jiskaske figi ou ak b***da ou gen menm balans.”
Maybe from that extract you can understand why my friend wrote what he wrote :)
DeleteO O! Ala Papa Nowèl naughty :)
DeleteMwen kontan ou deside ede leve figi Kreyòl la. Peyi Ayiti bezwen sa anpil.
Eske ou konnen grannèg Ayiti pa voye timoun yo nan lekòl ki entegre lang Kreyòl la nan pwogram yo? Se malere, men se yon verite ki tris. Etranje bay lang lan plis valè pase kèk Ayisyen. Men, mwen espere sa va chanje trè byento.
Kèk koreksyon:
-"e vre? E ki kado w’ap pote pou mwen sòt NAN makouti majik OU, Papa Nowèl?"
-“Se pa yon sèl kichòy ou merite. Pou ou menm, m’ap POTE yon pakèt bèl kalòt, e m’ap fout ou YOUN aprè lòt jiskaske figi ou ak b***da ou gen menm balans.”
Mwen panse "POTE" fè plis sans pase "BWOTE" nan sikonstans sa a.
Dakò.
Mèsi anpil.
ReplyDeleteInteresting you should mention those things about Kreyòl. I can talk a lot about that... I had a job in Haiti to set up a primary school. That school may have the best elementary-level Kreyòl library in Haiti :) (a bit over 100 books). Every school day ends with Kreyòl story book time.
Sadly, 95% of those books I brought from the USA (mostly Miami), and cannot be found in Haiti.
A hundred Creole books in an elementary school in Haiti is quite a treat. That’s a small library indeed!
DeleteOne should never underestimate the work that you are doing in this elementary school. That’s the best place to start this “Creole language revolution”.
It just makes a lot of sense to read a story to these kids in the language they speak every day. I just don’t understand why foreigners get this, but most Haitians don’t.
Grownups in Haiti are set in their ways. They hang on to the days where the languages you speak define your social status. They still believe that Creole doesn’t spell a bright future.
They complain that it’s hard to read, that there aren’t enough word choice, that it’s only good for songs and poems, and that Creole won’t take them further than the airport of Haiti.
As a matter of fact, my friend who owns a few elementary schools in Haiti was telling me the other day that school owners in Haiti aren’t thrilled about adding a creole curriculum because they get snubbed by the higher social class parents that their school need. But instead, their school becomes filled with poor kids of poor families, and that’s not good for reputation of financial advancement. She told me that school’s principals in Haiti attract “cream of the crop” students and parents by adding English classes, by having kids memorize French poems, big French words, etc…
This may be why the department of education in Haiti has been slow to come up with specific Creole language guidelines or program that should be implemented in Haiti kindergarten classes (ie: phonetics, alphabet standards, reading standards, high frequency Creole words, etc…)
I am also told that the teachers have vainly asked the department for a uniform Creole program. But that's not going to happen any time soon. So most schools are on their own. That is also sad.
I hope that this is one of the things that you will be working on, "TiWil", once you go back to Haiti :)