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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, 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.
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 means of communication for migrant populations traveling between neighbouring English- and French-speaking islands.
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