Antillean Creole
| Antillean Creole Kreyol, Kwéyòl, Patwa |
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|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Dominica, French Antilles (Guadeloupe, Martinique), Saint Lucia | |
| Total speakers: | 1,205,585[1] | |
| Language family: | Creole language French Creole Antillean Creoles Antillean Creole |
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| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | none | |
| ISO 639-2: | ||
| ISO 639-3: | gcf,acf | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
Antillean Creole is a French-lexified creole language 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. The language was formerly more widely spoken in the Lesser Antilles, but it has mostly vanished from Tobago and the 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 and in recent decades, it has gone from being seen as a sign of lower socio-economic status to a mark of national pride.
Since the 1970s there has also been a literary revival in french islands, with writers such as Edouard Glissant and Raphael Confiant among others.
Dominican speakers of Antillean Creole call the language Kwéyòl.[2] Antillean Creole is spoken, to varying degrees, in Dominica, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint-Barthélemy (St. Barts), Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent, Trinidad and Tobago. Antillean Creole has approximately 1 million speakers.
It is a de facto mean of communication for migrant populations between neighbouring English and French-speaking islands.
Examples
- Good morning-Boujou /bonzu/.
- Please-Souplé /su plɛ/.
- Thank you-Mèsi /mɛsi/.
- Excuse me-eskizé mwen.
- Rain is falling-Lapli ka tombéLapli ap tombe".
- Today is a nice/beautiful day-Jodi-a sé yon bel jou Jodi-a bel.
- How are you/how are you keeping-Sa ka fèt? Sa kap fet.
- Anne is my sister/mother-"Anne sé sè/manman mwen"
- Andy is my brother/father/husband-"Andy se fwè/papa/mari mwen"
- He is going to the beach- "li ka alé a laplaj"
References
- ^ [1] [2]. Ethnologue considers Guadeloupean Creole French (spoken in Guadeloupe and Martinique) and Saint Lucian Creole French (spoken in Dominica and Saint Lucia) as two separate languages, with the respective ISO 639-3 codes: gcf and acf.
- ^ Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), 2005. Languages of Dominica. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, SIL International, Fifteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.
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