Antillean Creole French

Antillean Creole French

Antillean Creole is a creole language with a vocabulary based on French. It is spoken primarily in the Lesser Antilles. Its grammar and vocabulary also include elements of Carib and African languages. Antillean Creole is related to Haitian Creole, but has a number of distinctive features; they are mutually intelligible. The language was formerly more widely spoken in the Lesser Antilles, but its number of speakers is declining in Trinidad & Tobago and Grenada. While the islands of Dominica and Saint Lucia are officially English-speaking, there are efforts in both countries to preserve the use of Antillean Creole, as well as in Trinidad & Tobago and its neighbour Venezuela. In recent decades, it has gone from being seen as a sign of lower socio-economic status, banned in school playgrounds, to a mark of national pride.

Since the 1970s there has also been a literary revival of Creole in the French-speaking islands of the Lesser Antilles, with writers such as Raphaël Confiant and Monchoachi employing the language. Edouard Glissant has written theoretically and poetically about its significance and its history.

Dominican, Grenadian, Trinidadian and Venezuelan speakers of Antillean Creole call the language Patois. Antillean Creole is spoken, to varying degrees, in Dominica, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Îles des Saintes, Martinique, Saint-Barthélemy (St. Barts), Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent, Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela (mainly in Macuro, Güiria and El Callao). Antillean Creole has approximately 1 million speakers.
It is a means of communication for migrant populations travelling between neighbouring English- and French-speaking territories.