McConnell–Laubach orthography
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The McConnell–Laubach orthography is the revised form of a previously proposed orthographic system for
Haitian Creole Haitian Creole (; ht, kreyòl ayisyen, links=no, ; french: créole haïtien, links=no, ), commonly referred to as simply ''Creole'', or ''Kreyòl'' in the Creole language, is a French-based creole language spoken by 10–12million people wor ...
. It was first developed by H. Ormonde McConnell and his wife Primrose in 1940, and then later revised by him and Frank Laubach in 1943.


History


McConnell

In 1940, a Protestant missionaries H. Ormonde and Primrose McConnell developed and proposed the first widely recognized
phonemic In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...
system of writing for the Haitian Creole language. Prior to McConnell's attempt at creating a system of orthography, however, the Haitian diplomat
Georges Sylvain Georges Sylvain (1866–1925) was a Haitian poet, lawyer and diplomat. Born in Puerto Plata (city), Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, Sylvain studied in his native city before attending school in Paris and receiving a law degree. After retur ...
had developed a small number of materials for the French-Haitian Creole bilingual elites, from his own French-based system of writing. Because it was largely unavailable to the masses, McConnell determined to create a system everyone could use. This original writing system contained 33 symbols: Oral Vowels: a, è, é, i, o, ò, u Nasal Vowels: â, ê, ô Semi-Vowels: i/y, w, u Consonants: b, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, z Digraphs: sh, gn


McConnell-Laubach

Frank Laubach Frank Charles Laubach (September 2, 1884 – June 11, 1970), from Benton, Pennsylvania was a Congregational Christian missionary educated at Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University, and a mystic known as "The Apostle to the Illit ...
was not a speaker of Creole, though he was an expert in American literacy. In 1943, he helped McConnell to revise his orthographic system, which resulted in what's known as the McConnell–Laubach Orthography. This contained two major changes: /ou/ instead of /u/, as in ''dou'' (''Eng.'' 'gentle'), and /ch/ instead of /sh/, as in ''chante'' (''Eng.'' 'to sing').


Criticisms of the McConnell-Laubach system


Charles Pressoir

The greatest opponent to this new orthography was a Haitian scholar named Charles Pressoir. He, along with a number of Haitian intellectuals, claimed that the use of "
Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...
" letters in Haitian orthography looked "too American" and reminded the people of Haiti of the recent American occupation. More linguistically, he also heavily criticized the lack of front-rounded vowels, and was concerned that the method of transcribing nasal vowels could make it difficult for Haitians to learn French; something that he attributed to McConnell and Laubach's unfamiliarity with the French language and
orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and mos ...
. In 1946, Pressoir and L. Faublas, the Haitian minister of education, responded with their own revised version of the McConnell–Laubach orthography, making several substantial changes in favor of "Frenchifying" the writing system. This was the Faublas-Pressoir system, and later called 'alphabet ONAAC' when it was adopted by the Haitian government.


Political and cultural tensions

The backlash against the proposed McConnell-Laubach system was, at its heart, a fight for the cultural identity of Haiti. While the McConnell–Laubach orthography was an uncomfortable reminder of the American/Protestant occupation, Pressoir's alternative was a return to French control. Some years after the Faublas-Pressoir system was developed, however, a group of French Linguists from the
University of Paris , image_name = Coat of arms of the University of Paris.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of Arms , latin_name = Universitas magistrorum et scholarium Parisiensis , motto = ''Hic et ubique terrarum'' (Latin) , mottoeng = Here and a ...
developed yet another orthography, adopted by the Institut Pédagogique National (IPN), that was more consistent than its predecessors and seen as a better representation of the language. In 1979, the IPN orthography was declared the official orthography of Haitian Creole.


Comparison of Haitian orthographic systems


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McConnell-Laubach orthography Indo-European Latin-script orthographies Languages of Haiti French-based pidgins and creoles Haitian Creole