32. Radio Stories about Haiti, including some segments in Creole

32. Radio Stories about Haiti, including some segments in Creole

"The Story" is a National Public Radio program where the host talks to both everyday people and famous leaders about the compelling stories of their lives. In the series of stories interviewing people from Haiti, there are quite a few segments in Creole/Kreyol, which are then repeated like an interpreter. The Wednesday, June 23 program featured a mother surviving under a makeshift tarp talking about daily life in this context, followed by Dean Hilda Alcindor, director of the only 4-year school of nursing in Haiti, the Faculté des Sciences Infirmières de Léogane (http://haitinursing.org).

http://thestory.org/special-features/stories-of-haiti/

Update on Post 03. Voice of America Creole News Service

Post number 03 on this site reviews the Voice of America news service in Creole. The VOA Creole service has just launched a brand new site interface, with easier audio access, RSS feed, and video clips. See what you think! http://www1.voanews.com/creole/news/

31. 2009 blog in kreyòl

Toutmounfocus.com is a website with french language news about haiti. The site also hosts bloggers, and there is a series of blog entries from 2009 available in Haitian Creole/Kreyòl.

http://toutmounfocus.com/focus/18/19/index.1.html

30. Haïti-Référence Online Dictionary

The website Haïti-Référence provides an online dictionary--thanks to a user of this site for suggesting it. http://www.haiti-reference.com/creole/diction/
Users can either look at a list of words with entries alphabetized in Kreyol (Creole), or can look up a word or phrase in English-Kreyol or Kreyol-English search. The dictionary boasts 8,755 words.
One nice feature is that for any word entered, multiple possible synonyms in the other language are provided.
Haïti-Référence is a site housed in Boston. Beyond the Kreyol-English dictionary, most of the site is in French, and provides what it promises--reference information on Haiti.

29. More Haitian Creole internet-streamed radio stations

In Resource 19, a radio station out of Boston is listed. In addition, Live 365 at http://www.live365.com/cgi-bin/directory.cgi?genre=search&searchdesc=haiti provides access, some of it free, to a variety of radio stations out of Haiti and in Haitian American communities in the United States. One of these stations that more consistently plays Haitian music is at http://www.live365.com/stations/konpamaniax Konpa Mix Radio. Many of the stations broadcast music and/or talk in Kreyol (Haitian Creole); many are bilingual with French too.

28. Haitian Creole language web TV (Tele Image)

Tele Image is a web-streamed, web-based TV news & news-entertainment station that also broadcasts on cable in some east coast United States markets. Much of the footage is in Kreyol (Haitian Creole). Because of the visual context of some of the news reporting, and being able to read lips & see gestures, this may be a much more accessible way to practice listening & reinforce vocabulary and grammar than the audio-only programming suggested in others posts on this site.

http://teleimagetvshow.com/

Programming sources vary, and some speakers speak French and English instead of Kreyol (Haitian Creole), or most commonly move fluidly among the three. There is some footage of post-2010 earthquake Haiti. Technical quality of sound and image varies. I found that my Firefox browser on a mac repeatedly crashed when using the site, but I was able to watch the footage consistently when using Safari. I haven't tested it yet in a Windows environment.

27. Long Haitian Creole/English medical phrase list

This resource is a 163-page document issued by Carnegie Mellon University's Language Technology Institute (http://www.lti.cs.cmu.edu/). It is most easily downloaded via the following URL: http://www.ngohaiti.com/disaster/downloads/englishpairs.pdf

The document provides English phrases that a medical professional might use or hear, in alphabetical order, and a translation into Kreyol (Haitian Creole). I'd be interested in any reader comments on the accuracy of the translations given. At first pass it looks like idiomatic turns of phrase and high frequency expressions are pretty good.

One way to use this resource as a phrase dictionary is to look up a word, such as "walk," using the Adobe Acrobat Reader "search" function. Then you can find where the Haitian translation(s) of that word show up in phrases. Walk, for example, appears in five different phrases, each time as "mache." "Pain" shows up more times than I can count, usually translated as "doulè," but infrequently as something "fe m' mal."

26. Haiti Hub free online Kreyol (Haitian Creole) classes via Skype

http://www.haitihub.com/ is the home of free online classes in spoken, conversational Haitian Creole. Right now, there is one teacher, and a second teacher is about to start, so classes have started up again post-earthquake. The program is located in the U.S. The curriculum is based on the Wally Turnbull book Creole Made Easy, so participants are expected to get themselves a copy of that book. All classes are delivered at a specific time via Skype, and registration is limited to one instructor and four students on Skype conference call at one time.

25. An academic article featuring a linguistic overview of Kreyòl (Haitian Creole) grammar

Michel DeGraff, Professor at MIT and renown linguist, recently published a quick but comprehensive overview of a variety features of Haitian Creole grammar/syntax--verb systems, sentence structure, and more. The article/chapter is called "Haitian Creole," and is published in Comparative Creole Syntax: Parallel Outlines of 18 Creole Grammars, John Holm and Peter Patrick, eds., London: Battlebridge Publications (Westminster Creolistics Series, 7), 2007. This chapter is not designed as a language instruction text, but for those with some experience in formal linguistics, the article can shed a great deal of light on how the structure of the language works, and how structure and contextual meaning interface.
A free copy is available for download on Michel DeGraff's recent publications page at MIT: http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/people/faculty/degraff/publications.html  Visitors may find DeGraff's other recent publications debunking colonial and neocolonial myths surrounding Creole eye-opening, and a helpful frame through which to view a lot of what is still written about Creole today.

24. Translated medical care sentences with audio (free) in English and Kreyol (Haitian Creole)

This site provides 52 common sentences that a medical provider might say in Haitian Creole in intake with a patient. Audio is provided for each one. The audio files are downloadable, also for free.
http://www.altalang.com/beyond-words/2010/02/16/haitian-creole-in-translation-medical-phrase-pronunciation-guide/

23. Free mp3 Haitian Creole announcements from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health makes available its public health announcements in downloadable .mp3 files in Haitian Creole. http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=eohhs2terminal&L=5&L0=Home&L1=Consumer&L2=Prevention+and+Wellness&L3=Health+Promotion&L4=DPH+Podcast&sid=Eeohhs2&b=terminalcontent&f=dph_c_health_note_haitian&csid=Eeohhs2
Transcripts are available in Creole, and an English version is available too. At 200 words, and spoken fairly slowly, these may be useful relatively topical listening for learning Creole related to medical care and public health. Nine episodes listed through January 2010 focused on flu prevention topics, including handwashing, covering coughs, and H1N1 vaccine.

22. Haitian Creole English Dictionary by Targete & Urciolo (free download)

The extensive Haitian Creole-English Dictionary (1993) compiled by Targete & Urciolo is available for free download in .pdf format from the publisher, Dunwoody Press. http://www.dunwoodypress.com/_Digital+Resource+Center.html

The introduction lays out the authors' lexicography challenges in detail and provides a bibliography.

Two interesting features of this dictionary are designed to aid English-speaking learners of Creole/Kreyol: first, nouns are listed with their associated definite article. (Definite articles, meaning approximately "the" in English, follow the noun and take multiple forms depending on the sound pattern at the end of a Kreyol noun.) Second, English cognates are followed by an asterisk (*) to draw the reader's attention to the similar vocabulary item in English and Creole/Kreyol.

Sample sentences are given, both from everyday life usage and from literature published in Creole. A list of source literature is provided.

21. Creole/Kreyol Haitian proverbs (free sites and a book for purchase)

Haitian Creole is rich in proverbs used frequently in everyday speech. There are quite a few Internet sites that provide a list of proverbs translated literally into English, but few that begin to unpack how the proverb is used in real conversation, and the multiple meanings that it can convey. For one set of interpretations of these layers of meaning, readers may want to consult Wally Turnbull's Hidden Meanings: Truth and Secret in Haiti's Creole Proverbs. ISBN: 9780967993768. The book is widely available from online booksellers.

A free internet site in Kreyol/Creole with classification alphabetically and by main verb, with alternate wording and some interpretation of meaning:
http://www.potomitan.info/vedrine/pwoveb.php
This site is from Emmanuel Vedrine, scholar of Haitian Creole.

Free internet sites with lists of proverbs and their translation into English include:
http://www.quotesstar.com/quotes/j/jan-chat-mache-se-pa-95280.html
This one is configured into sub-pages that are tricky to navigate. The source of the original proverbs and the translations is not provided.

http://www.interproverbs.co.uk/proverbs-other-countries/haiti.html
This site claims a "complete" list of Haitian proverbs, a claim which one should take with a grain of salt. Again, the source of the original proverbs and the translations is not provided.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Haitian_proverbs
This wiki list of proverbs is quite long, but again, does not provide author information.

A free site with Kreyol/Creole proverbs listed without translation, organized into thematic categories labeled in French:
http://www.haiti-reference.com/arts/culture/proverbes.html
This list is part of a larger French-language site called Haiti Référence

This is one of my favorites for learners of Kreyol/Creole who read French, because each proverb's possible interpretation is explained a bit, in addition to the original translation. The author of the work is Talégrand Noël
http://www.collectif-haiti.fr/proverbes.php

20. Two English-Haitian Creole medical dictionaries from Educavision (for purchase)

These two medical dictionaries are handy. They are generally available from online booksellers.

#1: English/Haitian Creole Medical Dictionary (Diksyone Medikal Angle Kreyol), by Maude Heurtelou & Fequiere Vilsant, published in 2000 by Educavision, http://www.educavision.com. ISBN 1-58432-072-9
I appreciate the organization of content in this book. Chapters each focus on a medical topic such as "Digestive System," "Cardiology," or "Equipment & Supplies." Synonyms are offered, often providing the student of Creole both a more formal, technical term plus the everyday term for an ailment or a part of the body. Common "collocations" (words that pattern together with high frequency) are also provided. The last two chapters provide a phrase list covering all phrases in the book, first in English alpha order, then in Kreyol alpha order.

#2: Systems of the Body (Sistem ko moun) is also published by Educavision, with no individual author listed. ISBN 1-58432-237-3
The first 83 pages are dedicated to detailed anatomical diagrams, labeled in both Kreyol and English. A long index at the end then lists all the vocabulary in the book without the pictures.  This is basically a bilingual guide to human anatomy terminology.

19. Listen to Haitian Creole Radio out of Boston (free)

The Boston radio station Radio Soleil International broadcasts Haitian music, advertisements for local businesses (mainly in Brockton, Mass.), public service announcements, news and talk from http://radiosoleilinternational.com/aboutus1.htm. The music library is terrific. Since ads and public service announcements are all in Kreyol, they provide an opportunity to hear highly repetitive contextualized chunks of the language, with exaggeration typical of commercials, making the words easier to pick out & understand. This is the first post of a few upcoming links to radio stations broadcasting in Kreyol/Haitian Creole on the web.

18. Red Cross provides 17 emergency/disaster preparedness docs in Creole (free)

The Red Cross provides its standard emergency and disaster preparedness advice sheets translated into multiple languages. At date of this post, seventeen were available in Haitian Creole at http://www.redcross.org/portal/site/en/menuitem.d229a5f06620c6052b1ecfbf43181aa0/?vgnextoid=a9fc78986407f110VgnVCM10000089f0870aRCRD&vgnextchannel=92d51a53f1c37110VgnVCM1000003481a10aRCRD#haitian. Some appear quite a bit more relevant for language learners wishing to communicate with Haitian Creole speakers in cold climes in the U.S., for example the one on winter storm readiness. Nonetheless, while the content may not always fit the current earthquake context in Haiti, language learners may still find that all of the documents provide practice as a set in reading, understanding, and rehearsing conversation in Haitian Creole.

17. Kreyol/Creole-English Dictionary (free)

This 147-page dictionary does not provide author information, and I have not had a chance to fully review contents, so proceed with at least a grain of salt. http://js.docstoc.com/docs/4849252/Kreyol-English-Dictionary-Kreyol-Crash-Course-Grammar-Pronunciation-These. The first ten pages are labeled "a crash course in Kreyol" and give a quick grammar overview plus a topically categorized phrase list. There is no audio associated with this dictionary. The dictionary is available for download in .pdf format.

16. National Library of Medicine offers medical documents in Creole (free)

The U.S. National Library of Medicine, part of NIH, offers a number of medical brochures and other documents in Creole (and links to collections of documents in Creole) for free download under "multilingual resources" at http://disasterinfo.nlm.nih.gov/dimrc/haitiearthquake.html#a5. Most of these resources are also available in English, which enables a learner of Creole/Kreyol to pick out key words, to look up a translation when they get stuck reading, etc.

15. Dozens of free health documents in Creole from the Refugee Health Information Network

The Refugee Health Information Network (RHIN) offers a collection of numerous documents on health translated into Haitian Creole. Learners of Creole may find it helpful to read these documents out loud, to summarize these documents in Creole, and to imagine what questions in Creole these documents answer. To help parse the Creole, most documents are also available in English, and some in Spanish & French too. http://rhin.org/search/search_results.asp?quick_search=&language=18&x=31&y=14

14. Hesperian offers Kreyol (Haitian Creole) translations of medical brochures and pamphlets (free)

Hesperian Foundation has set up a new site with health brochures translated into Haitian Creole, English, French and Spanish. http://creole.hesperian.net/ Hesperian invites submission of additional resources. Beyond being useful for health education, these documents are terrific resources for learners of Kreyol for medical purposes. For example, users could read the documents without looking at the translation and try to guess words from context, then check them in the translation. Or users could highlight words in the English (or French or Spanish) that they wish to know in Kreyol, and then go comb those key phrases from the Kreyol version of the document. More advanced learners could, for example, read segments of the Kreyol documents and then try to summarize them verbally, in Kreyol, or make up questions in Kreyol that the documents would answer.

13. Google Translator offers Haitian Creole (text and sound) (free)

Google's translator now offers English/Kreyol translation, with the added bonus of being able to hear the words/phrases in Kreyol. http://www.google.com/translate_t?text=How+can+I+help+you%3F&sl=en&tl=ht#submit. The voice synthesizer works pretty well, but be cautious, as some key sounds don't come out quite right, such as the "ou" pronoun at the end of a phrase, which is usually reduced to a "w" sound in Kreyol, but can sound more like the vowel "ah" in this dictionary. This dictionary is built off of corpus data from multiple sources, including a large database from Carnegie Mellon University, so at least in its written version, it may be more accurate than dictionaries built more intuitively. It is still a work in progress, and invites user-suggested "better translations" and additional datasets to continue building from.

12. Tradui iPhone app English/Kreyol dictionary (free)

Apple now offers a free iPhone app, Tradui, which means "translate," to translate English/Haitian Creole. There is a version for the Google Android smartphone too. Available at the iPhone App Store and http://traduiapp.com/.

11. Microsoft Bing translator English/Haitian Creole (free)

Post-January 12 earthquake, Microsoft launched a beta version of its Bing online translator for Haitian Creole. http://www.microsofttranslator.com/Default.aspx "Thank you so much" results in "mesi anpil." Very appropriate.

10. More books in Kreyol and to learn Kreyol (for purchase)

This bookstore site may look at first pass as if it doesn't offer much, but each category listed with one example book actually links to a long list of books available for purchase. Quite a few are aimed at children--but children's books in Haitian Creole are a fantastic way for grownups to experience and remember vocabulary, the rhythm of the language and common proverbs. http://www.worldlanguage.com/Languages/Creole.htm

09. Haitian Book Centre Kreyol (Creole) textbooks for purchase

While not exhaustive, there is a pretty good list of Kreyol (Creole) textbooks for speakers of English at http://www.haitianbookcentre.com/bookbag/browse.php?CategoryID=18. Some titles can be found at less expensive prices on other sites, but this is the most comprehensive browsing collection I've found in one place.

08. Phrase list and easy grammar overview (free)

Paul Le Corde provides a high-frequency phrase list and an accessible but comprehensive overview of grammatical structures at http://www.lecorde.com/creole/kreyol/index.php?page=Whatisit.

07. Haitian Creole phrase collections (including medical terminology) (free)

http://www.kreyolforparents.com/help%20yourself%20pages/learning_kreyol.htm is a site that provides two "crash-course" free resources. The first is a list of phrases organized by theme for "short-term" international medical providers in Haiti. The second is an 18-page mini-textbook that consists of phrases, sample sentences, and a little bit of information on grammatical structure. The text ends with 218 sentences to translate from English into Kreyol for practice. The intended audience is short-term missionaries.

06. home-made Kreyol dictionary (free)

There is a word-and-phrase dictionary formatted as a text page for each letter of the alphabet at http://www.kreyol.com/dictionary/. While the dictionary is not sourced in frequency studies of language corpora, it does appear to be a pretty good intuitive list of high-frequency items. Access is free, but the site has quite a few ads.

05. Pimsleur audio Haitian Creole dialogue learning

Pimsleur offers dialogues that are then broken down and analyzed with repetition of each word and phrase, building up to dialogue practice. The "compact" ten-lesson Haitian Creole set is being offered for free to support relief and reconstruction efforts. However, the "add to cart" download was not working when I tried it on February 13, 2010. Here is the link if you'd like to try: http://www.pimsleuraudio.com/product_info.php?products_id=2614&prodname=Haitian+Creole+Compact+Download
NEW: See comment below--Audible.com offers the same free materials successfully at this link.

04. Haitian Creole "Byki" free flashcard software

Byki is software that, in its free version, provides a "smart" flashcard interface for lists of translation pairs. The user can pick from four steps for any "list" of vocabulary items: (1) see the Haitian Creole phrase and its English translation and play the Creole phrase at normal speed or slowed down, (2) see the Haitian Creole phrase and self-quiz or type the corresponding English phrase, and (3) see the English phrase and do the reverse in Haitian Creole. While the match must be exact, even including capitalization and punctuation, there is a button to click to "accept this answer as correct," which provides the user a little more flexibility. If you are a visual learner, or wish to see words paired with hearing model pronunciation, you might find this interface helpful for vocabulary memorization. One can also upgrade to a paying version, but I haven't tried it. Finally, Byki tries to take advantage of social networking capabilities to get users to share more vocabulary lists and to practice communicating with each other. The following link goes to the set of lists currently available for Haitian Creole: http://www.byki.com/category/Haitian%20Creole/a. Users can download the software for Mac or Windows via a link on that same page.

03. Voice of America (VOA) Creole Service (free)

Updated May 29, 2010: The VOA Haitian Creole News Service has launched a brand new interface, with easier audio access, RSS feed, and video clips. http://www1.voanews.com/creole/news/ See what you think!

The Voice of America news service http://www.voanews.com/creole/ offers multiple audio programs daily in Haitian Creole, including extensive interviews with relief and reconstruction participants on the ground in Haiti. Downloads of the programs of the last seven days in .mp3 format are available on the VOA website, which also streams the most recent program. This is a way to hear many different voices & speaking styles as hosts and interviewees communicate about Haiti right now. Some segments are available separately and are summarized or transcribed in Haitian Creole, so lots of practice reading and visual support for listening are available.

02. Indiana University Creole Institute textbooks for purchase

The Indiana University Creole Institute offers a list of titles of Creole-English dictionaries and instructional texts for purchase, at http://www.indiana.edu/~creole/abstract.html. Some free samples are available, including sample sound files. Texts include the 1988 classic Creole language textbook Ann Pale Kreyol, updated in 2001.

01. K.U. free online Haitian Creole textbooks with audio

KU, The University of Kansas in Lawrence, KS, has made available a fantastic array of Haitian Creole language instructional materials for non-commercial use.

http://www2.ku.edu/~haitiancreole/

There is a medical phrase book that goes beyond body part translations to the conversations that actually take place during patient care.

There is a "survival guide" for true beginners, introducing key features of grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation, with high-frequency words and phrases. The focus is largely on using language as a visitor to or traveler in Haiti.

There is also a "conversation manual" that consists of humorous dialogues built around the romance that evolves between two students of Haitian Creole. The dialogues are annotated with information about what phrases are commonly used for what purposes conversationally.

Learning Haitian Kreyol

Twenty years ago, most people around me were puzzled as to why an American student of French would study the Creole/Kreyol languages of Haiti, Martinique, Guadeloupe, and French Guyana.

On January 12, 2010, after the devastating earthquake that struck Haiti, our nation opened its eyes, as it periodically does in times of crisis, to our Caribbean neighbor. We have all been reminded how Haiti's history is intricately entwined with that of the United States. And in order to contribute to short-term disaster relief and Haiti's rebuilding its future, many Americans are now trying to learn or become more fluent in Kreyol, the language spoken by all Haitian citizens.

I'm re-learning it, and as I find online resources for doing so, I'll share them here, in the hope that others will find them useful.

(Steven, in response to your comment below--yes! Byki is #4. Please pass on any additional sites you've found useful. :)  Mesi anko--pamela)