MICHEL DEGRAFF: My name is Michel DeGraff,
and I've been teaching in linguistics at MIT
for the past 21 years already.
And I'm the faculty instructor for the course
on Creole languages and Caribbean identities.
So my research is about trying to understand
how languages evolve over time.
And what happens when new languages are created.
Say, for example, in the Caribbean in my native Haiti
where Haitian Creole emerged in the 17th, 18th century.
So we try to understand that patterns of development
of the languages we call creole languages.
And in terms of the structure, but also I
have an applied side to my work where
I try to understand how best to use say, Haitian
Creole and other local languages in education
and how that's crucial for development
of countries like Haiti.