Until recently, many language experts did not see Haitian Creole as a legitimate separate language. Known more as a broken form of the French Language, Creole was long considered a substandard, slang dialect. This was made the even more evident by the fact that there were no known computer translation systems that could accurately do Haitian Creole translations. MT systems (machine translation) had not been programmed to translate for Haitian in a speech-to-speech platform

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The problem was first been addressed back in 1998, when a researcher named Jeff Allen, along with his colleagues from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU); vowed to tackle the task of translating Creole by creating recordings for the speech-to-speech MT system. They were able to create useable demos.

However, the subsequent events of September 11, 2001 at the World Trade Center brought all their work and funding to a halt. Arabic translations became the focal point of the language world.

Then came January 12, 2010 when a massive 7.0 earthquake rocked Haiti on the outskirts of its capital city; Port-au-Prince. The country was in shambles and more than half a million people died, with hundreds of thousands more facing severe losses and a collapsed economy. As international humanitarian and emergency medical resources poured in, so too did Translators Without Borders, a French organization that provides non-profit translation support by volunteering in times of disaster to facilitate medical translations. Interpreters and translators arrived in record numbers to volunteer, but there were not enough.

The once promising tools for translating Haitian Creole were now urgently needed for humanitarian reasons but they were not ready. Localization experts began working to provide the vital translation and interpretation tools that would make it possible for aid workers to communicate with the earthquake victims  Withiin a matter of days some of those prototypes began appearing on the Microsoft and Google websites.

At the same time, many translation professionals used social media sites to organize and provide translation services to assist relief efforts remotely. Since then, Creole translators have been in high demand, especially by the localization industry. Catastrophes have interesting side effects, and the lack of Haitian translators was only one consideration among the many challenges that Haiti faced.

In light of the earthquake and its aftermath, the need for Creole localization became all the more apparent. Medical translators and multinational aid organizations had to translate everything from medical documents to signs showing survivors where to seek assistance. Having the ability to communicate in Creole proved to be valuable to the volunteer teams.

Thankfully, volunteers have managed to start putging Haiti back together despite the lack of adequate Haitian Creole linguists and translation tools.