Haitian Creole (resources)
It’s hard to be in global health and not have some fascination with Haiti. It’s hard to be interested in linguistics and not have some fascination with creoles. Add the recent quake in Haiti and addition of a Haiti measles campaign to the Measles Initiative Summer 2010 list, and it’s virtually impossible not to be overcome with a desire to travel to Haiti and help, and to learn Haitian Creole.
Although the recent quake has proved to be a tragedy of the greatest proportions, it has brought more attention to the plight of Haiti. Americans have donated more than $700 million already, NGOs are beginning to rethink the way aid is delivered, and many people are working to help Haiti. For those who want to learn Haitian, Pimsleur has made the first 4 hrs of their Kreyol lessons free or charge (I’ve completed the free lessons and they are pretty useful). Lessons 1-5, and lessons 6-10. If you speak French or any Latin-based language you will probably find Haitian Creole is not that alien to you.
To practice listening to conversational Kreyol, there is a free Kreyol Internet radio station. Google translate is now offering Kreyol too. Massachusetts public health announcements are now being made in Kreyol (in mp3), which can help listening as well. Here’s a free Haitian-English dictionary in PDF. Supposedly this site is also doing free lessons (over Skype) in Creole too!
UPDATE: to keep this measles related, I stumbled across this press release about the Red Cross having vaccinated 150,000 in Haiti against measles, since the quake.
