Indo-European · ISO 639-3 hat · ht
Haitian Language Kreyòl Ayisyen
Haitian is an Indo-European language spoken by about 9.6 million people in 1 country. It is an official language of Haiti. It is written in the Latin script.
Where Haitian is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
Countries that speak Haitian
Language family
- Indo-European
- Classical Indo-European
- Italic
- Latino-Faliscan
- Latinic
- Imperial Latin
- Romance
- Italo-Western Romance
- Western Romance
- Shifted Western Romance
- Northwestern Shifted Romance
- Gallo-Rhaetian
- Oil
- Central Oil
- Macro-French
- Circum-Caribbean French
- Haitian
Writing system
Latin script
Related languages
About the Haitian language
Haitian (Kreyòl Ayisyen) is spoken by about 9.6 million people, which makes it the 126th most spoken language in the world — just behind Dhundari (9.6 million) and ahead of Dari (9.6 million). It belongs to the Indo-European language family and, more precisely, to the Circum-Caribbean French group within the Italic branch.
Where is Haitian spoken?
Haitian is used in 1 country. The largest communities live in Haiti (9.5 million). More than half of the population speaks it in Haiti — the places where travellers will hear it everywhere.
Haitian is an official language in 1 country: Haiti.
Writing system and status
Haitian is written in the Latin script. It is a safe, widely transmitted language: children still learn it at home as their first language.
Its closest relatives in the same branch of the family are French, Morisyen, Romansh, Lombard, Piemontese, Emilian and 2 more.
ISO codes: ISO 639-1 ht, ISO 639-3 hat.
Frequently asked questions about Haitian
How many people speak Haitian?
Where is Haitian spoken?
In which countries is Haitian an official language?
What language family does Haitian belong to?
What is Haitian called in Haitian?
Is Haitian an endangered language?
Data: Languages of the World dataset (MIT) — ISO 639-3, Glottolog (CC BY 4.0), Unicode CLDR, Google LinguaMeta (CC BY 4.0) and Wikidata; country lists: samayo/country-json (MIT). Speaker numbers include first- and second-language speakers where sources report them.