Alternative Names
The ethnonyms for Haitian include the Creole word ayisyen and the French word haïtien. In English language sources the word is also sometimes spelled Haytian. Haiti in Creole is Ayiti; and in French, Haïti.
Location and Linguistic Affiliation
Occupying the western third of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, which it shares with the Dominican Republic, Haiti covers 27,750 km2 and is located 90 km southeast of Cuba, 187 km northeast of Jamaica, and about 1,000 km from Florida. Although Haiti has some flat, semiarid valleys, much of the country consists of rugged and sharply dissected mountains with about two thirds of the almost 28,000 km2 divided into three mountain ranges. La Selle Peak, the highest elevation, tops off at about 2,680 m. The average temperature falls within a typical Caribbean range with the capital city of Port-au-Prince having a mean annual temperature of 26.3° Celsius.
Although difficult and chronically misunderstood, the language situation is not...
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Lawless, R. (2004). Haitians. In: Ember, C.R., Ember, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Medical Anthropology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-29905-X_72
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