Haitian Creole is natively spoken by about 11.5 million people, primarily in Haiti and among Haitian communities in the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean. It is central to Haitian cultural identity, blending West African, French, and indigenous Caribbean languages. Written in a modified Latin alphabet, Haitian Creole grammar features a subject-verb-object (SVO) word order and a simplified system of verb conjugations that indicate tense, aspect, and mood.