by CHANTAL MARTINEAU

Haitian Creole has traditionally been an oral language, its folklore and rhetoric passed down through the ages by means of storytelling more so than published accounts. In Haiti, it's customary for kids to learn French at school and speak Creole at home. Until recent years, many had never even seen their mother tongue on paper.

Lyonel Desmarattes, a Haitian living in Washington, D.C., is one of the forces trying to change this tradition. His collection of classic theatre and literature adapted to Creole, entitled Kreyolad, is making its way, in pieces, to readers. As yet unfinished, the collection, published by EducaVision in Coconut Creek, Florida, includes adaptations of Jean Racine's Athalie (Atali) Pierre Corneille's Horace (Bravo pou Ayiti) and Molière's Les Femmes Savantes (Famn Filozòf), as well as a direct translation of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, entitled Woben Lakwa. So far, Montrealers can obtain copies of Mouche Defas and Lekòl Medam Yo, which are adaptations of Molière's Tartuffe and L'Ecole des Femmes, respectively.

Learning the mother tongue

"We'll be targeting Haitian markets and bookstores for now, in Montreal North and St-Michel," says Danick Pierre-Louis, Desmarattes' niece and the person responsible for distribution in Quebec. His entire family, a clan some 40 strong, live in Montreal.

The collection is distributed here and in select U.S. cities where Haitian communities have formed. It has been used, over the years, in American university linguistics departments, as well as to help train diplomats who will go on to deal with Haiti, and is now being studied in Haitian schools.

"One parent told me, ‘After reading your works, my kids understand better what they learned years ago in French,'" says Desmarattes. "My works help kids learn."

Some Haitian parents still support the teaching of French instead of Creole in schools. Their own language has long been associated with peasant life. Desmarattes believes it was the colonist forces in Haiti that misled people to believe a child who learns Creole first will be unable to learn French later on. He blames the soaring rate of high school dropouts in his homeland on the fact that basic subjects, such as science and math, are taught in French - essentially a foreign language. His hope isn't to eliminate French altogether, but rather that Haiti should have a linguistic dichotomy, like Montreal.

"People in Haiti and in other old French colonies see French as the language of victory and liberation and Creole as the language of losers, of the vanquished," Desmarattes says. "I don't see it that way."

Living language

He likens his ambition to that of Tanzanian President Julius Kambarage Nyerere, who retired from politics in the 1980s in order to devote himself entirely to the translation of Shakespeare into Swahili. When asked why he wanted to interpret the Elizabethan vernacular for his people, Nyerere said he wished to prove that Swahili was able to cope with international culture.

"People say Creole cannot express abstract, intellectual or scientific concepts," says Desmarattes. "In the time of Corneille and Molière, the scientific and intellectual texts were still written in Latin. René Descartes first said, ‘I think therefore I am' in Latin, not French. At that time, French was seen as a bastardisation of Latin. It is like that now with Creole. It is seen as a bastardisation of French."

Desmarattes, like Haitian playwright Félix Morisseau-LeRoy, who adapted Sophocles' Antigone for Haitians in the 1950s and has since become one of Haiti's most renowned literary figures, is out to prove that Creole can be a modern language with all the potential to function at the same level as other languages, if given a chance. It was centuries before French dictionaries were available in print, yet several Creole-English, Creole-French, Creole-Spanish and even Creole-Creole volumes exist already. The Faculté Linguistique Appliquée de l'Université d'État d'Haïti is working on an official Creole language dictionary due to be completed in the next two to three years.

"Since Antigone, to my knowledge, this is the first time that a Haitian intellectual has decided to dedicate himself, body and soul, to the translation of the classics," says Pierre-Roland Bain of the International Committee for the Promotion of the Creole Language and Literacy (Komite Entènasyonal pou Pwomosyon Kreyòl ak Alfabetizasyon or KEPKAA) in Montreal. "It shows anything can be done in Creole."

Story fits the culture

KEPKAA is helping to promote the Kreyolad collection. According to Bain, the reaction from members of Montreal's Haitian community has been extremely positive. He is pleased the works are available to Haitians living here but agrees their use in Haitian schools is the most important accomplishment.

"Language is an educational tool to help people develop themselves," says Bain. "When ideas are there but must be expressed in a foreign language, they can't come out properly. Ignorance reigns because people can't create.

"Haiti is a Creolophone country, not a Francophone country," he adds, comparing the situation in Haiti to that in Quebec. He draws a parallel between Bill 101, introduced in Quebec to promote the use of a language considered crucial to Québécois culture, and Haiti's Réforme Bernard, initiated in 1979 to promote the teaching of Creole in schools. Today, he says, little progress has been made. Some schools continue in their antiquated ways, while others try to incorporate modern ideas about the Creole language. While only 10 to 15 per cent of Haitians can express themselves in French, Creole is spoken by the entire population and should therefore be used in the government, the courts and industry.

"[What Desmarattes is doing] is unique," says Bain. "He is bringing the universal stories to his people."

Desmarattes is quick to point out that what he writes are adaptations, not direct translations. With the exception of Woben Lakwa (pronounced Robin Lacroix), he does not translate - he interprets. If the content or format of a story is too hermetic or removed from Haitian culture, he must rework it so that his people can relate to it.

Lifelong dream

Interpreting classic theatre for Creolophones isn't Desmarattes' full-time job. As a radio news editor for Voice of America in Washington, D.C., he hosts a program featuring Haitian issues and culture. It was his study of the theatre that led him to a job in radio. He came up with the idea of interpreting famous plays for Haitian audiences as a drama student at the Conservatoire National d'Haïti in the late 1970s.

"We wanted to present a play that makes sense to the Haitian public," he says. Up until then, his acting troupe had only put on 17th- and 18th-century French plays. A piece suitable for a Haitian audience proved difficult to find. When Desmarattes suggested adapting a Molière play, he was faced with scepticism.

"It's impossible," a friend told him. Years later, as a presenter on Radio Nouveau Monde in Haiti, he still hadn't forgotten his vision of classic French plays interpreted to appeal to Haitians. It wasn't until 1982 that he first produced Mouche Defas. Twoup Kreyolad, his acting troupe at the time, toured the country with it, staging productions at the Rex Theatre, Haiti's largest, as well as twice before l'Institut Français d'Haiti. Recently, Mouche Defas was made into a film.

With a number of potential future projects, his biggest challenge is electing what to start working on next. He wants to adapt other classics, such as Ernest Hemmingway's The Old Man and the Sea and Antoine de St-Exupéry's Le Petit Prince in order to "awaken the desire to read in children." He expects the rest of the Kreyolad collection to be out in the coming months.

Like President Nyerere, he hopes his work will show the world and especially his own people that their language is worthy of history's great stories. "Creole needs no excuses," says Desmarattes' opinion, and he's spreading the written word.