My kids came home today with their final report cards from the year. Excellence all around - one very proud mamabear for sure. They also came home with their final scores on some standardized tests that they took earlier this year. Again, excellent, excellent - out of 202 questions, for instance, my daughter only missed 4. But I digress.
What I thought was interesting is that they had the information about the test, how to interpet the scores, etc. in English, Spanish - and not French as I expected. Not Chinese, Arabic, or Hindi (among the top 10 spoken languages in the world). It was in Haitian Creole. Which, without the label, I would never have identified (even with an ear and eye for language, and some time spent devoted to linguistic studies - albeit it WAS 20 years ago). A true Creole for certain, such an amalgamation of phonemes and morpheme from what appear to be about 12 different source languages...an intriguing sight to see. But it wasn't so much the actual language that caught me off guard - just the choice of language printed on a national, standardized test result. I know English is becoming the second most spoken lanuage in the US - with Spanish vaulting into the spotlight in that category.
I just wouldn't have guessed Haitian Creole. Maybe one day my little girl will say to me, "Mwen vle vin yon dokté"...and a doctor she will become. Because you know what, I guess that ol' Haitian saying is true - "Pale franse pa di lèspri ou." "Speaking French doesn't make you smart."
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