English has an enormous share of #HaitianCreole

Lots of English words in Haitian Creole

According to the blog Memorize Haitian Creole, the way words have been swapped between English and kreyol is pretty striking.

In my opinion, that doesn’t, however, make it any easier to learn. Like many, ah, informal languages, which display a certain ad hoc spirit, kreyol suffers from its lack of a straitjacket. It is so freeform and free-spirited that it can be hard to get one’s head around it.

Anyway, a few of kreyol’s English imports:

A

abandon – abandone
absent – absan
absolute – absoli
Accent – Aksan
accessible – aksesib
Adjust – Ajiste
adolescence – adolesans
adopt – adopte
adoption – adopsyon
advance – avanse
approach – apwòch
approve – apwouve
artist – atis
assurance – asirans
attack – atake
attitude – atitid
authorization – otorizasyon
authority – otorite

(I want to add one from my recent kreyol class – “amitye” or friendship.)

_______________

B

benefit – benefisye
bikini – bikini
biscuit – biskit
block – bloke
blonde – blond
blue – ble

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C

(Remember there is no letter C in kreyòl and the English C sounds like an S or a K and that’s what it is substituted with in kreyol)

coincide – kowenside
coincidence – konyensidans
colleague – kolèg
collect – kolekte
college – kolèj
color – koulè
combine – konbine
comedy – komedyen
common – komen
compare – konpare
complement – konpleman
complex – konplèks
compose – konpoze
concept – konsèp
concision – konsizyon
conclusion – konklizyon

“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life”
– Jack Kerouac