can u understand haitian creole if u speak french?

Question

because, most of the words in haiian creole are all the same in french except for the wy they are written.
for example: passer-pase laver-lave manger-manje

Answer 1

NO Origami you obviously do not understand Creole or how it sound like. To answer your question, Haitian Creole has the same concept that of French, but from what I understand, you would understand part of it (if youre a francophone). You see, Haitian Creole is a mixture of French, Spanish, and African vocab and influences. Nevertheless, it is not in comparison to how Origami so eloquently puts it "American English speaker listening to a Brit" but more as a Brit listening to a......Dutchmen or.....Scandinavian for that matter.

Answer 2

Maybe some, but probably not all. Haitian Creole isn't just based on French, it also has elements of Taino (native language of Haiti), some African languages, Portuguese and Spanish. However, French is also an official language of Haiti.

Answer 3

No you cannot understand Haitian Creole. The words may be similar (not the same), but the grammar of the language is VERY different. The best analogy is going from English to New Guinea and trying to understand Tok Pisin. Tok Pisin has exactly the same process of origin that Haitian Creole had--creolization. Creolization involves a radical change in grammatical structures of a superstrate language (English or French) and a simplification of the phonological structures of the words.

Here is an example of Tok Pisin (almost all of the words come from English): Komyuniti Sekenderi Edukesen em i wanpela kain skul. Dispela buk bilong toktok save tasol.

Look how the words are English, but the meanings have shifted along with the sentence structure: tasol (from English "that's all") "only"; wanpela (from "one fellow") "one"; toktok (from "talk talk") "information". Dispela ("this fellow") buk ("book") bilong ("belong") toktok save tasol = "This book will have information only."

Here is an example of a French-based creole from the Seychelles: Alors in zour ti trouve ennan in lé-roi. Y ti ennan in basin prés au bord son la cour dans qui y ti prend son bain tous les zours.

Answer 4

A better analogy than British vs. American English would be Spanish and Portuguese. In some cases, it's fairly easy, in others, it's pretty much impossible.

Answer 5

Yeah, its just a little hard to understand. Like going to England if you're from the US.