The world's most popular language-learning app adds Haitian Creole as its 41st language

Duolingo, the world’s most popular language-learning app, has announced that users can begin learning Haitian Creole on its platform. It’s the 41st language supported on the platform behind others such as French, German, Spanish, Klingon, and many more. The language has 9.6 million native speakers as of 2007 and for anyone who has studied French, the similarities between that language and Haitian Creole will immediately be noticeable.

Having added many European and Asian languages as well as Swahili which is spoken in some African countries, Duolingo has turned its attention to preserving some languages spoken in the New World such as Hawaiian, Navajo, and now Haitian Creole. Interestingly, Haitian Creole was preserved through the spoken word and informal teaching until the late 1970s; with its introduction on Duolingo, it’ll help formalise the language and allow more people to learn it.

Writing on the Duolingo blog, Emily Moline from the company said:

“As with many Afro-Latino and Afro-Indigenous languages, Haitian Creole has a similar history of perseverance under oppression. The language gained its most extensive development throughout the 200 years of enslavement of people, primarily from West Africa, who were forcibly brought to the island during the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The enslaved people spoke dozens of different West African languages (mainly Fon, Igbo, and Ewe), and contact with speakers of Taíno, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and English led to a global language being formed in the Americas that we now identify as Creole. It’s most widely spoken by the Haitian population in Haiti and elsewhere under the label of Haitian Creole.”

While Duolingo continues to add languages to its platform, it is also continually improving the foundations with clever technologies to encourage people to learn. One such technology Duolingo uses is a machine learning model called Birdbrain which constantly works to present you with lessons that are not too difficult but not too easy either; this led to a boost in both learning and engagement from users.

If you’re unfamiliar with Duolingo, the service is available for free (ad-supported) but also offers Plus membership which gives you some perks. Duolingo is quite unusual among language learning platforms as much of the competition usually charges a hefty fee to access course materials.