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| Haitian French[1] | |
|---|---|
| français haïtien | |
| Native to | Haiti,United States,Canada,Costa Rica |
| Ethnicity | Haitians,French Haitians |
Native speakers | 4,454,000 (2016)[2] |
| Latin (French alphabet) French Braille | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | None |
| Linguasphere | 51-AAA-ija |
| IETF | fr-HT |
Haitian French (French:français haïtien[fʁɑ̃sɛaisjɛ̃];Haitian Creole:fransè ayisyen) is the variety ofFrench spoken inHaiti.[1] Haitian French is close to standard French. It should be distinguished fromHaitian Creole, which is notmutually intelligible with French.
Thephoneme consonant /ʁ/ is pronounced [ɣ], but it is often silent in the syllable coda when occurring before a consonant or prosodic break (faire is pronounced [fɛː]). The nasal vowels are not pronounced as inMetropolitan French: /ɑ̃/ → [ã], /ɛ̃/ → [ɛ̃], /ɔ̃/ → [õ], and /œ̃/ → [œ̃]. The typical vowel shifts make it sound very much like other regional accents of theFrench Caribbean and theFrancophone countries ofAfrica.[3] The perceivable difference between Haitian French and the French spoken inParis lies in the Haitian speaker's intonation, where a subtlecreole-based tone carrying the French on top is found.[1] Importantly, these differences are not enough to create a misunderstanding between a nativeParisian speaker and a speaker of Haitian French.[1]
InHaiti, theFrench spoken inParis is veryprestigious, so much so that a growing number ofHaitians would rather speak it as precisely as possible and pursue this by listening toRadio France Internationale and matching the somewhat conservative style of speech heard on that station.[1]
In the educated groups, French is spoken more closely to the Parisian accent. It is within this group that a major portion of enrollment is provided for the private schools and universities. Even in this group however, a native accent of the language usually occurs in everyone's speech.[4]
