| Antillean Creole | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kreyol, Kwéyòl, Patwa | ||||
| Spoken in | French Antilles, Dominica, Saint Lucia. | |||
| Native speakers | 1,205,585[1] (date missing) | |||
| Language family |
French Creole
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| Language codes | ||||
| ISO 639-3 | either: gcf – Guadeloupean Creole French acf – Saint Lucian Creole French |
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| Linguasphere |
51-AAC-cc (varieties: 51-AAC-cca to -cck) |
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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 it has mostly vanished from Tobago and its number of speakers is declining in 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. In recent decades, it has gone from being seen as a sign of lower socio-economic status, banned in school playgrounds,[2] 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 Edouard Glissant and Raphaël Confiant employing the language.
Dominican speakers of Antillean Creole call the language patois.[3] 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. Antillean Creole has approximately 1 million speakers.
It is a means of communication for migrant populations traveling between neighbouring English- and French-speaking islands.
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Kwéyòl was born out of the slavery era, when different tribes from Africa were assigned to the same slavery plantations in the Caribbean countries; it was a time when their slavemasters were either French or British and their native tongues were somewhat useless as a method of communication since they themselves spoke different tribal lingoes. As a result, they were forced to develop a new form of communication that they could use to convey messages to each other by relying on what they heard from their colonial masters and their fellow tribes-men. Sporadically (at irregular intervals), they would use words they thought they heard their colonial masters speak and combine them with their African lexis (expressions) and sentence structure, thus, new words were wrought (fashioned) and given meaning. Gradually, this new method of communication amongst the slaves spread summarily across the regions of the Caribbean. This “Creole” language, which is French for indigenous, progressively grew into a more recognizable phraseology (language).
Below is a sample of St. Lucian Creole French taken from a folktale.[4]
Pwenmyé ki pasé sé Konpè Kochon. I di, "Konpè Lapen, sa ou ka fè la?"
Konpè Lapen di'y, "Dé ti twou yanm ng'a (=mwen ka) fouyé bay ich mwen pou mwen bay ich mwen manjé."
Konpè Kochon di, "Mé, Konpè, ou kouyon, wi! Ou vlé di mwen sa kay fè yanm?"
An English translation from the same source:
First to pass was Konpè Kochon (Mister Pig). He said, "Konpè Lapen (Mister Rabbit), what are you doing there?"
Konpè Lapen told him, "I am digging a few holes to plant yams to feed my children."
Konpè Kochon said, "But, Konpè, you're too foolish! You mean to tell me you can grow yams there?"
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