Certificate in Haitian Studies

I took up a Haitian certificate to learn more about my heritage and traditional background. I learned so much about the history of Haiti and the revolutionary war where the slaves fought for their freedom. Haiti was the first and only successful country to have a slave rebellion and to liberate itself from slavery. They revolted in 1791 and gained their independence in 1804 marking history. The Haitian revolution caused a sudden and massive shortage of sugar, opening doors to Cuban planters to fill the gap. It also brought fear that another Haitian revolution could happen there.  learned that the slaves who were brought to Haiti were forced to work as migrant workers and given jobs not other humans would perform. They were dehumanized and discriminated against the color of their skin. There was racism between two different nations who shared the same border with each other. The Dominicans rejected their African roots and the Haitians along with their language, culture, and color. As opposed to the Dominicans, the Haitians chose to continue to carry out the traditions of their African ancestors. Learning about the history of my heritage brought me closer to my roots. I felt a sense of identity and belonging with my people to discover their power and strength. Haitian are resilient and hard-working individuals. They have been through so much and yet they continue to persevere through the stereotypes and prejudices. I am glad to have been able to take up this certificate.

Not only did I learn about my cultural background, I learned the grammar and writing aspects of the Haitian language. I learned the differences in sentence structures between the Haitian and English language. In the English language, there are many words and sounds associated with each other as well as meanings to different words that have the same sound. However, in the Haitian language, each sound belongs to a letter in the alphabet. I also learned that the Haitian alphabet has letters that stand-alone or stand together with another letter. That must stand together with another as an, en, ng, on, oun, and ui. The letters Moreover, the Haitian alphabet does not contain the letter ‘x’ or ‘q’. There are different definite articles as well such as Mwen-I, Ou-You, Li-She/He, Nou- You all, and Yo-They. The form of the definite article depends on the ending sound of the word that comes before.