MIT’s Michel DeGraff, professor of linguistics, has been a long-time advocate of educating students in Haiti in their native Kreyòl. His work around the MIT-Haiti Initiative was recently profiled in MIT News, and Professor DeGraff has written on the subject in publications such as The New York Times.

Interested in learning Haitian Creole on your own? The Libraries have a couple of options:

• For a course in Haitian Creole Essentials, try Transparent Language Online. Register at the site to enable the system to track your language-learning progress, or use the mobile app.
• For more advanced learning using the Pimsleur method, consider borrowing the Haitian Creole CD set from the Hayden Library, available at the Service Desk.

For those more familiar with Haitian Creole, we have a mix of materials purchased in the original language:

• Trouillot, Lyonel. Pwomès. Port-au-Prince, Haiti : Imprimerie Brutus, 2014.
• Turnbull, Elizabeth. Janjak & Freda go to the Iron Market : ale Mache an Fè. Creole text by Wally Turnbull. 2013.
• Vilson, Georges. Kandelab [sound recording] : 101 notated Haitian folk and vodou songs. Volume 1.: Kandelab Foundation Inc.,  2013.