Haitian Creole is based on a language in the Indo-European family.
French ( le français [ lə fʁɑ̃sɛ ] or la langue française [ la lɑ̃ɡ fʁɑ̃sɛz ] ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family . Haitian Creole . The usage and education in Haitian Creole -- which is not mutually intelligible with French -- has been contentious since at least the 19thcentury : where Haitians saw French as a sign of colonialism , Creole was maligned by francophone elites as a miseducated or poor person 's French .