27072: Hermantin(News)Scientist bridges language barrier (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

Scientist bridges language barrier


Creole-English dictionary aids schoolchildren



-- Chauncey Mabe

January 1, 2006



Writers, of course, need tools. Twelve years ago, biochemist Fequiere Vilsaint, 
researching cholesterol metabolism at the University of South Florida, 
volunteered to tutor schoolchildren in Tampa. He discovered that Haitian 
students were hampered by the absence of an English-Creole dictionary.

He began helping students find "the key word to understand in Creole the 
English word they would need."

In a few months, Vilsaint had compiled enough words for an English-Creole 
dictionary. An immediate hit with teachers, it was Vilsaint's first 
publication, and it's still in print. He followed with a science dictionary, 
then compiled what he calls "the first monolingual Haitian Creole dictionary in 
the world."

Eventually, Vilsaint decided to leave science to become a full-time publisher, 
founding Educavision and relocating to Deerfield Beach. Specializing in 
schoolbooks for Haitian immigrant children, Educavision publishes 12 titles a 
year and maintains a backlist of 300. "Our sales are very small," Vilsaint 
says. "About $250,000 a year. But I'm sure after I'm dead some of these books 
will still be around."

Vilsaint describes Haitian Creole as a simple, straightforward and expressive 
language, with phonetic spelling. Words generally do not contain letters that 
aren't pronounced. "Creole," for example, becomes "Kreyol." The Haitian 
language is not the only creole in the Caribbean, Vilsaint says. Martinique and 
Guadeloupe have their own creoles, but speakers from each of the islands can, 
with some difficulty, understand each other.

A "creolized language" arises, Vilsaint explains, when dominant and subordinate 
groups with differing languages exist in prolonged contact. In Haitian Creole, 
which has long since become a full-fledged language, the vocabulary is French 
(from the French planters), while the grammar and syntax are African (from the 
slave laborers).

"A French person can't read Haitian Creole well because of the spelling," 
Vilsaint says. "But read it to them aloud, and they get it.

"It's a common mistake for English speakers who want to master Creole to start 
with French, which is a very complicated and difficult language. Because it is 
primarily phonetic, Creole is very easy to learn."


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