Linguistic Diversity In Haiti

Linguistic diversity in society and a society’s system of social stratification goes in hands in hands. The more ethnic or diverse language, the less that it is valued by society. The less Europeans sounding language the less “civilized” the group is perceived by society. This occur even within a culture, for example in Haiti the standard language is French even though the majority of the country speak creole. In Haiti, French is viewed as if you are educated and if you are fluent in French then you are superior to those who don’t which I find extremely odd because they are choosing the language of their colonizers instead of the ones that they themselves created. I don’t understand why they don’t support their own culture because by putting
French as the standard or formal language in Haiti you are supporting their agenda and are validating their beliefs that that they are superior to you. Speaking French in Haiti also shows that you are educated and that is not something anyone can achieve in Haiti because in Haiti school is not free like the United States. If you go to school in Haiti, you have to learn French, there is no other way because you get punished for speaking creole which is the language that the majority of the population speak.
Dialects also shows how society views and belittle those who don’t speak in “standard English” or proper English.
The way someone speak indicated their social rank. According to Kottack, “the use of dem, dese ,and dere is one of many phonological differences that Americans recognize and look down on” (237).which indicate how society devalue those who use “improper english” which everyone can agree on. We all have been guilty of judging a person class by the way their speak. For example, how society use to and still judge African American dialect which is now called BEV or black English vernacular. A lot of people aren’t hired because they sound too “urban” or they speak “proper English” which enable this system of poverty. Language is learned through enculturation therefore an individual really have no choice in the way they speak. There are ways to fix that issue but you have to hire a speech coach and these people who society think need to can’t afford to and they shouldn’t have to. Another example of how language or dialects display social stratification is the studies of r prononuciation in New York city. In this studies, their purpose was determine how sociolinguistics variation coorelated with social class by studying three different stores that targerted three different social class group and the result were predictable. The class personel or the workers reflects or represent their audience, for example the salespeople in Saks Fifth Avenue which caters to the the
upper middle class spoke with her r while the S, Klein shops who caters to the working class and lower class dropped their r entirely.
This study shows how something as insignificant as they way someone pronounce their r showed other people which social class that their belong to. Class and race also goes hands in hands, they are almost inseperable and that is going to continue if society doesn’t change their views on what is “good English” or why a language is called “broken English” why can’t the language validate itself because the people who speak these language understand it and can communicate so why society has to views the language as broken or inferior to English. We as human believe that we are all different. We believe that we are all different because everyone appearance varies , we believe in different Gods and we from different background and our skin tones don’t match and we speak different languages. As we know all language came from on language which is the mother language which demonstrate how a any baby could learn any type of language.