Indiana University presents the online lecture “’Eso no es Kreyòl’: Linguistic Insecurity among Haitian Creole Speakers in the Dominican Republic,” by Kendall Medford (Tulane University), on Thursday, March 13, 2025, at 4:00pm (EST).

As part of the 2025 Minority Languages and Cultures Speaker Series, this event is hosted by IU CLACS, the Haitian Creole Program, in partnership with IU Department of French and Italian.  [Register here. The Zoom link will be sent to you on Thursday morning.]

Description: Haitians have immigrated to the neighboring Dominican Republic in large numbers since the early twentieth century. Their language, Haitian Creole (Kreyòl), can be heard while walking down almost any Dominican street, and inside of Dominican schools, churches, restaurants, and office buildings. However, the language is highly stigmatized inside the country, which has led to varying levels of language shift and bilingualism among Dominicans of Haitian descent.

This research offers a contemporary examination of language attitudes towards Haitian Creole in a community of Dominicans of Haitian descent. Using 4 ethnolinguistic interviews conducted in 2022 in a former batey (sugarcane mill) town in the Dominican Republic, the author provides a case study of the complex sociolinguistic situation that many Dominicans of Haitian descent face. Focus is placed on how demographic shifts and other sociocultural factors have impacted the language choices of Haitians in this bilingual context. This research finds that a speaker’s command of Haitian Creole – or lack thereof – greatly impacts their sense of ethnolinguistic identity and group belonging within the Haitian diaspora.

Also see https://www.facebook.com/CreoleLanguageProgram

[Photo above from The New York Times. The border between the Dominican Republic and Haiti, by Erika Santelices/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images.]