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MICHEL DEGRAFF: My
name is Michel DeGraff,

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and I've been teaching
in linguistics at MIT

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for the past 21 years already.

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And I'm the faculty
instructor for the course

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on Creole languages and
Caribbean identities.

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So my research is about
trying to understand

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how languages evolve over time.

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And what happens when new
languages are created.

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Say, for example, in the
Caribbean in my native Haiti

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where Haitian Creole emerged
in the 17th, 18th century.

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So we try to understand
that patterns of development

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of the languages we
call creole languages.

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And in terms of the
structure, but also I

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have an applied side
to my work where

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I try to understand how
best to use say, Haitian

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Creole and other local
languages in education

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and how that's crucial
for development

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of countries like Haiti.