Would helping Haiti pass the 'global test?' It's not like any other countries (including the French) care a whit.
Posted on 10/19/2004 6:31:11 AM PDT by mattdono
Chris Suellentrop, writing in Slate, witnesses firsthand the kind of political instincts that are legendary in Massachusetts:
Let's see: Your opponent is characterizing you as an effete internationalist willing to "turn America's national security decisions over to international bodies or leaders of other countries." In particular, he suggests, in all seriousness, that you want to call up Jacques Chirac for permission before deploying the military. At the Republican National Convention, you were portrayed as a beret-wearing poodle named "Fifi Kerry." How should you defend yourself against these slanders?By speaking French on the stump, of course.
Click here to hear John Kerry's foray into the language of Paris during a Monday rally here. I wasn't watching Kerry on stage when he made his remarks, but from the context he appears to have seen someone from Haiti and decided to acknowledge the person in his or her native tongue.
What does Kerry say? My knowledge of French is limited to the lyrics to "Lady Marmalade," so I consulted my friend John Wilkerson, a Washington journalist and French speaker. He translates the first part as, "You're Haitain? OK," but says the rest sounded like gibberish. "I think at that point he was just a character on Saturday Night Live," Wilkerson says.
I think he was saying, "Le attack ad fodder, c'est moi."
This audio clip is muddy, but I'm sure that someone has to have a better copy of the audio.
All together now: Kerry has terrible "political instincts".
Loose translation; "If I am elected, Haiti will have all the Soylent Green they need!"
Would helping Haiti pass the 'global test?' It's not like any other countries (including the French) care a whit.
Kerry speaks French like the native he is....
ROTFL!
He's just trying to shore up his base.
I love the invitation at the end of the article for folks to listen and offer up their own translations. I expect to se a whole thread devoted to that!
"Vous etes d'Haiti? D'Accord. Vous aiderez..?"
quality to poor to catch the last bit, sounded like "c'est ca?"
Haitian Creole is a French-based creole. It is a language that developed out the sociohistorical situation of seventeenth and eighteenth century Haiti, where a pidginized variety of French was used as a contact language between masters and slaves and among Africans of diverse ethnic origins in the plantation economy of the time. There are considerable morphological and syntactic influences from West African languages which were spoken by the overwhelming majority of slaves in Haiti, but the basic lexical structure of the language is French in origin. Thus, it is generally considered a Romance language, but in many ways one that is quite unlike a typical Romance language. It is not considered a dialect of French, but rather a completely independent language, about as closely related to French as modern Italian is to Latin (Hall 1953).
Listen later...
UPDATE: One of Kerry Spot's most important readers, Aileen, points out this fascinating information about Haiti, French, and Creole:
Two languages were spoken in Haiti: Creole and French. The social relationship between these languages was complex. Nine of every ten Haitians spoke only Creole, which was the everyday language for the entire population. About one in ten also spoke French. And only about one in twenty was fluent in both French and Creole. Thus, Haiti was neither a francophone country nor a bilingual one. Rather, two separate speech communities existed: the monolingual majority and the bilingual elite.Language usually complicated interactions between members of the elite and the masses. Haitians of all classes took pride in Creole as a means of expression and as the national tongue. Nevertheless, many monolingual and bilingual Haitians regarded Creole as a nonlanguage, claiming that "it has no rules." Thus, the majority of the population did not value their native language and built a mystique around French. At the same time, almost every bilingual Haitian had ambivalent feelings about using French and did so uncomfortably. In Creole the phrase "to speak French" means "to be a hypocrite."
Fluency in French served as an even more important criterion than skin color for membership in the Haitian elite. The use of French in public life excluded the Creole-speaking majority from politics, government, and intellectual life.
John Kerry: Snobby and elitist in two languages!
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