when did haitian creole become a written language
Haitian Creole Haitian Creole developed in the 17th and 18th centuries on the western third of Hispaniola in a setting that mixed native speakers of various Niger–Congo languages with French colonizers.[23] In the early 1940s under President Élie Lescot, attempts were made to standardize the language. American linguistic expert Frank Laubach and Irish Methodist missionary H. Ormonde McConnell developed a standardized Haitian Creole orthography. Although some regarded the orthography highly, it was generally not well received.[24] Its orthography was standardized in 1979. That same year Haitian Creole was elevated in status by the Act of 18 September 1979.[25] The Institut Pédagogique National established an official orthography for Creole, and slight modifications were made over the next two decades. For example, the hyphen (-) is no longer used, nor is the apostrophe.[26]:131[10]:185–192 The only accent mark retained is the grave accent in ⟨è⟩ and ⟨ò⟩.[10]:433