MIT OpenCourseWare

Browse materialsMIT 24.908 · Spring 2017

Creole Languages and Caribbean Identities

Subject: Language

Art: Italian illuminator, Boethius initial consolation philosophy, 1385 · Public domain

Instructor: Prof. Michel DeGraff
Term: Spring 2017
Level: Undergraduate
What's inside: 39 videos · 1 reading · 45 other files · 4 web pages
Materials open: Videos here · files on MIT OCW

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Source: MIT OpenCourseWare 24.908 Creole Languages and Caribbean Identities, Spring 2017, Prof. Michel DeGraff — original course page on ocw.mit.edu ↗. License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Study order: MIT's own listing order, section by section. Taken from MIT's published course files, downloaded from ocw.mit.edu on September 23, 2026. How RedLectern is built.

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1 file

MIT 24.908 S17: Essay grading rubricPDF Download

24 videos

Assignments

24.908 S17: Essay writing guidelinesPDF Download

Student Presentations

Other materials from this course

10 files

1 video

Facilitating Meaningful Classroom Discussions (Creole)Video Open ↗

27 video transcripts

7 images

MIT OpenCourseWare, Prof. Michel DeGraff, 24.908 Creole Languages and Caribbean Identities, Spring 2017.

License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 · Edition: Spring 2017 · Open the original course on OCW ↗

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Creole Languages and Caribbean Identities

Before you start

What's here, and what isn't

Not included here

Materials by section

Instructor Insights

Assignments

Student Presentations

Other materials from this course

1. Do "Pidgins" exist? Do Creole languages come from Pidgins?

2. How much variation in space and in time through the history of Haitian Creole?

3. On "Kreyolofoni": Why do we still use the label "Creole" to refer to "Creole languages"?

4. Post-colonial discourses of power & identity; the making of socio-economic & cultural hierarchies

5. Language and discourses of power in the making of “authentic” identities in post-colonial societies

6. Language, culture, identity and "authenticity" in post-colonial communities

7. Feedback to students who led class discussion

8. Against Creole Exceptionalism, Part 1: Creole languages are perfectly normal languages

9. Against Creole Exceptionalism, Part 2: Creole formation is normal language change

10. Against Creole Exceptionalism, Part 3: Creole formation is language acquisition plus social factors

11. "Birth certificates" of languages created via migration & population contact—Kreyòl, English…

12. A brief & partial history of anti-Creole myths at the core of imperialism—linguistic & otherwise

Guest lecture (2022): Unmaking and remaking community (part 1)

Guest lecture (2022): Unmaking and remaking community (part 2)