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How Kreyòl works

Haitian Creole has been an official language since 1987 and has had an official spelling since 1979. Unlike French it is phonemic: one sound, one spelling, no silent letters. If you can say it, you can spell it.

No silent letters

French writes beaucoup and says something much shorter. Kreyòl writes what it says. This is the single biggest difference, and the reason literacy campaigns fought for the 1979 orthography.

Three nasal vowels: an, en, on

Written as digraphs. When the vowel is NOT nasal the grave accent separates it, which is why the accent on è and ò carries real work.

The article comes AFTER the noun

liv la — the book. And it changes shape with the sound before it: la, a, an, nan. This trips up French speakers more than anything else.

Verbs never conjugate

Tense sits in a small word before the verb: te (past), ap (ongoing), pral (about to), ta (would). The verb itself never changes for person or number.

No grammatical gender

No le/la to memorise. li covers he, she and it.

Plural with yo

liv yo — the books. The same yo is also the pronoun they.