Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

primarily as an advocacy and policy-making institution.
Women's groups are playing a growing role within grassroots
peasant organizations and rural savings and loan associations.
The Language Question
French and Creole
Two languages are spoken in Haiti: Creole and French. The
social relationship between these languages is complex. Perhaps
nine out of ten Haitians speak only Creole—the everyday
language for the entire population. Only about one in twenty is
fluent in both French and Creole. Thus, Haiti is neither francophone
nor bilingual. Rather, two separate speech communities
exist: the monolingual majority and the bilingual middle and
upper classes.
All classes value verbal facility. Public speaking plays an
important role in political life; the style of a speech is often
more important than its content. Repartee enlivens the daily
parlance of monolingual peasant and bilingual urbanite alike.
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