[Olpc-Haiti] our Haiti translation site's now in English+ French + on Facebook too!
Chris Low
christinewlow at gmail.com
Wed Feb 3 10:20:20 EST 2010
If you ask Haitian bi lingual teachers they also know Kreyòl. The
Graham and Aprks school has some Haitian teachers. There are probably
teachers in Somerville, Boston, etc who used to be in the bu lingual
porgrams that are now ESL or ELL programs.
I agree that we cannot accept bad creole. If you are going to have
bad Creole you might as well leave the computer in English. Why
English? Haitians are supposed to lear English in high school. New
Computer , new words. They would learn these words through play.
I prefer the Creole.
I agree, Creoletrans is a great translating company.
Chris Low
MCLC Co-director
www.matenwaclc.org
617 543 8844 USA cell
011 509 3 711 0661 Haiti cell
011 509 2 513 0217 LKM
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On Feb 3, 2010, at 12:36 AM, Michel DeGraff wrote:
>
>
> Carmina et al,
>
> Thank you for sharing your own experience with us vis-à-vis Kreyòl
> writing.
>
> When it comes to the education of Kreyòl speaking children, my own
> belief is that a (substantially) imperfect Kreyòl translation will do
> more harm than good. In my view, the XO, like any computer, is a
> _tool_, not an end. The quality of the materials that are
> installed on
> the XO is key to its success as a tool. And we certainly do not want
> our
> children to be using an instrument that uses an imperfect version of
> their language---a language that has long been stigmatized out of
> "class
> bias," to use John Rigdon's term. And the socio-political message
> would
> be problematic as well: it would be as if Kreyòl-speaking children do
> not "deserve" the same quality of materials as children speaking
> English, French, Spanish, etc.
>
> One unfortunate fact is that the social history of Kreyòl, steeped in
> (neo-)colonialism and slavery, is very different from that of English,
> French, Spanish, and so on. And the predicament of Kreyòl speakers
> who
> cannot write Kreyòl is one consequence of that history, and we do need
> to take this history into account in planning educational projects for
> Haiti. But Kreyòl also has its strengths (e.g., in its uniform
> spelling system) which can be an asset for technology design---for
> example, text-to-speech software like "Speak" on the XO.
>
> Another good news is that there do exist professional Kreyòl
> translators. For example:
>
> http://creoletrans.com/
>
> I hope this helps,
>
> -michel.
> _____________________________________________________________________
> MIT Linguistics & Philosophy 77 Massachusetts Ave Cambridge MA 02139
> degraff at MIT.EDU http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/people/faculty/degraff
> _____________________________________________________________________
>
>
>
> ----- Message from carminablaise at gmail.com ---------
> Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2010 23:47:02 -0500
> From: Carmina Blaise <carminablaise at gmail.com>
> Reply-To: Carmina Blaise <carminablaise at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Olpc-Haiti] our Haiti translation site's now in English+
> French + on Facebook too!
> To: Michel DeGraff <degraff at mit.edu>
>
>
>> Michel, John,
>>
>> This conversation rings so true to me being one of the Haitians who
>> speak
>> but not write Kreyol.
>> It also explains the reticence or what I perceived as a lack of
>> enthusiasm
>> from my peers when trying to recruit volunteer translators.
>>
>> It's not because my Haitian brothers and sisters don't care, but
>> because
>> like me, I suppose that they are intimidated by the task at hand
>> and maybe even embarrassed to admit that they can not write Kreyol.
>>
>> Your idea of paying "professional" Kreyol translators is an
>> interesting one
>> with many positive ramifications
>>
>> But the problem as I see it is where do we find "professional" Kreyol
>> translators?
>>
>> Is an imperfect Kreyol translation worse than no translation?
>>
>> Looking forward to hearing your suggestions
>>
>> Thanks
>> Carmina
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> &*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*
>> Do you speak Creole?
>> Haiti needs your help!
>> Can you Help?
>> www.raisehaitiup.com
>> &*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*&*
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Feb 2, 2010 at 10:00 PM, Michel DeGraff <degraff at mit.edu>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> John,
>>>
>>> I agree with your comment re:
>>>
>>> > It has been my experience that most Haitian adults in the
>>> diaspora do
>>> > not read Kreyol well, although they speak it because they were
>>> > essentially educated in French before
>>> > leaving Haiti.
>>>
>>> And they often write it even less well. And this is not their
>>> fault: as
>>> you point out, most educated Haitian adults above certain age were
>>> never
>>> trained to write in Kreyòl. These issues need to be kept in mind
>>> as
>>> "volunteers" from the diaspora are being enlisted to translate
>>> interface, software and courseware that are meant to Kreyòl-speaking
>>> children.
>>>
>>> This is a point I've stressed many times to OLPC folks, but it has
>>> often
>>> fallen on (apparently) deaf ears: translation should be taken as a
>>> serious professional activity on a par with the sort of activities
>>> that
>>> OLPC employees and consultants (in Haiti and elsewhere) routinely
>>> get
>>> paid for. I think we have to closely monitor the quality of Kreyòl
>>> translation, especially when it comes to languages like Haitian
>>> Creole
>>> that, for too long, have been dismissed as "broken languages" by too
>>> many (though not all) French-speaking Haitians. Of course, this is
>>> related to the "class bias" that you mention in your email---a class
>>> bias with deeply entrenched historical and socio-economic roots.
>>>
>>> Kreyòl pale, kreyòl konprann...
>>>
>>>
>>> -michel.
>>> _____________________________________________________________________
>>> MIT Linguistics & Philosophy 77 Massachusetts Ave Cambridge MA
>>> 02139
>>> degraff at MIT.EDU http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/people/faculty/
>>> degraff
>>> _____________________________________________________________________
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ----- Message from jrigdon at researchonline.net ---------
>>> Date: Tue, 2 Feb 2010 21:08:28 -0500
>>> From: John Rigdon <jrigdon at researchonline.net>
>>> Reply-To: John Rigdon <jrigdon at researchonline.net>
>>> Subject: Re: [Olpc-Haiti] our Haiti translation site's now in
>>> English+
>>> French + on Facebook too!
>>> To: Michel DeGraff <degraff at mit.edu>, Samuel Klein
>>> <meta.sj at gmail.com>
>>>
>>>
>>> > Thank you for the clarification Michel.
>>> >
>>> > It has been my experience that most Haitian adults in the
>>> diaspora do
>>> > not read Kreyol well, although they speak it because they were
>>> > essentially educated in French before leaving Haiti.
>>> >
>>> > It is only those under the age of about 25 who both read and speak
>>> Kreyol.
>>> >
>>> > It has been my experience in visiting Haiti over the last few
>>> years
>>> > that the majority of the schools are still being taught in French,
>>> > and there is a strong "class" bias to try to learn French and
>>> > demonstrate profiency. I hope I'm not being offensive here. I
>>> > really don't mean to be.
>>> >
>>> > Happily the young children under about age 12 are really proud of
>>> > their ability to read Kreyol and overwhelmingly they want to learn
>>> > English and Spanish. I think generally these younger children
>>> > understand Spanish and English better than they do French.
>>> >
>>> > When I first visited Haiti about 8 years ago, I identified 55
>>> books
>>> > in Kreyol at that time. I think the universe of titles may be
>>> close
>>> > to 400 now - maybe double that if you include pamphlets, tracts,
>>> and
>>> > brochures.
>>> >
>>> > John Rigdon
>>> > www.ngohaiti.com
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>>
>>>
>>> ----- End message from jrigdon at researchonline.net -----
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Olpc-haiti mailing list
>>> Olpc-haiti at lists.laptop.org
>>> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/olpc-haiti
>>>
>>
>
>
> ----- End message from carminablaise at gmail.com -----
>
>
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