User:Wikiqueen3000/Antillean Creole

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Origin of creole

Lesser Antillean Creole began as the pidgin "baragouin" in 1635. It was spoken by French settlers, their African slaves, and Aboriginal peoples that resided on the islands. It originated in the Guadeloupe and Martinique areas of the Lesser Antilles. It was not until 1700, when there was an increase in African influences, that this pidgin transitioned into the creole that it is today. The formation of this creole was influenced by many different dialects and languages. These include dialects of French, other European languages, Carib (both Karina and Arawakan), and African languages.

Due to the influences from its origins, this creole has some interesting linguistic features. The linguistics features of French included in Lesser Antillean Creole are their infinitives, the use of only the masculin form of the word, oblique pronouns, and their subject to verb word order. The features from African languages include their verbal marking system as well as providing a West-African substrate. Other features of this creole also include doubling to emphasive a sentence, the word "point" to inflect the negative, and the non-distinguished adverbs and adjectives.

In the slavery era, Africans were assigned to the slavery plantations in the French Antilles. Due to differing native tongues, it was difficult for French settlers to communicate with their slaves and vice versa. As a result, they were forced to develop a new form of communication by relying on what they heard from their colonial masters and other slaves. According to Jesuit missionary Pierre Pelleprat, French settlers would change their way of speaking to a more simpler form to be more accommodating to their slaves. For example, to say "I have not eaten" settlers would say "moi point manger" even though the proper French translation is "Je n'ai pas mangé". This simpler form of French, along with linguistic influences from other languages, eventually evolved into Antillean creole.