Native to Dominica Glottolog sain1246 | Native speakers 43,000 (1998) Linguasphere 51-AAC-ccg | |
Language family French Creole
Antillean Creole French
Dominican Creole | ||
Dominican Creole French is a French-based creole, which is the generally spoken language in Dominica.
History
It is a sub-variety of Antillean Creole, which is spoken in other islands of the Lesser Antilles and is very closely related to the varieties spoken in Martinique, Guadeloupe, Saint Lucia, Grenada, Haiti and parts of Trinidad and Tobago. The intelligibility rate with speakers of other varieties of Antillean Creole is almost 100%. Its syntactic, grammatical and lexical features are virtually identical to that of Martinican Creole, though, like its Saint Lucian counterpart, it includes more English loanwords than the Martinican variety. People who speak Haitian Creole can also understand Dominican Creole French, even though there are a number of distinctive features; they are mutually intelligible.
Like the other French-based creole languages in the Caribbean, Dominican French Creole is primarily French-derived vocabulary, with possible African and Carib influences to its syntax. In addition, many expressions reflect the presence of an English Creole and Spanish influences are also present in the language.