Grammar
Haitian Creole grammar differs greatly from standard Parisian French; the language is closer to 17th century popular or colonial French spoken by farmers and other lower class white people who were in the colony of Sainte-Domingue. It is much more analytical: for example, verbs are not inflected for tense or person, and there is no grammatical gender—meaning that adjectives and articles are not inflected according to the noun. The primary word order (SVO) is the same as in French.
Many grammatical features, particularly pluralization of nouns and indication of possession, are indicated by appending certain markers, like yo, to the main word. There has been a debate going on for some years as to whether these markers are affixes or clitics, and therefore what should be used to connect the affixes to the word: the most popular alternatives are a hyphen, an apostrophe or a space. It makes matters more complicated when the affix itself is shortened, perhaps making only one letter (such as m' or w').
Although the lexicon is mostly French, the sentence structure is like that of the West African Fon language.
| French | Fon | Haitian Creole | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ma bécane/becane moi
my-SING-f bike |
Keke che
bike my |
Bekàn mwen
bike my |
My bike |
| French | Fon | Haitian Creole | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mes bécanes
my-PL bikes |
Keke che le
bike my-PL |
Bekàn mwen yo
bike my-PL |
My bikes |
Read more about this topic: Haitian Creole
Famous quotes containing the word grammar:
“Like everything metaphysical the harmony between thought and reality is to be found in the grammar of the language.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
“I went to a very militantly Republican grammar school and, under its influence, began to revolt against the Establishment, on the simple rule of thumb, highly satisfying to a ten-year-old, that Irish equals good, English equals bad.”
—Bernadette Devlin (b. 1947)
“The new grammar of race is constructed in a way that George Orwell would have appreciated, because its rules make some ideas impossible to express—unless, of course, one wants to be called a racist.”
—Stephen Carter (b. 1954)