Dominican Creole French is a

French-based creole A French creole, or French-based creole language, is a creole for which French is the lexifier. Most often this lexifier is not modern French but rather a 17th- or 18th-century koiné of French from Paris, the French Atlantic harbors, and the ...

, which is a widely spoken language in

Dominica Dominica ( or ; Kalinago: ; french: Dominique; Dominican Creole French: ), officially the Commonwealth of Dominica, is an island country in the Caribbean. The capital, Roseau, is located on the western side of the island. It is geographical ...

. It can be considered a distinct dialect of

Antillean Creole Antillean Creole (Antillean French Creole, Kreyol, Kwéyòl, Patois) is a French-based creole that is primarily spoken in the Lesser Antilles. Its grammar and vocabulary include elements of Carib, English, and African languages. Antillean Creo ...

History

It is a sub-variety of

, which is spoken in other islands of the

Lesser Antilles The Lesser Antilles ( es, link=no, Antillas Menores; french: link=no, Petites Antilles; pap, Antias Menor; nl, Kleine Antillen) are a group of islands in the Caribbean Sea. Most of them are part of a long, partially volcanic island arc be ...

and is very closely related to the varieties spoken in

Martinique Martinique ( , ; gcf, label= Martinican Creole, Matinik or ; Kalinago: or ) is an island and an overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France. An integral part of the French Republic, Martinique is located in ...

Guadeloupe Guadeloupe (; ; gcf, label= Antillean Creole, Gwadloup, ) is an archipelago and overseas department and region of France in the Caribbean. It consists of six inhabited islands— Basse-Terre, Grande-Terre, Marie-Galante, La Désirade, and ...

Saint Lucia Saint Lucia ( acf, Sent Lisi, french: Sainte-Lucie) is an island country of the West Indies in the eastern Caribbean. The island was previously called Iouanalao and later Hewanorra, names given by the native Arawaks and Caribs, two Ameri ...

Grenada Grenada ( ; Grenadian Creole French: ) is an island country in the West Indies in the Caribbean Sea at the southern end of the Grenadines island chain. Grenada consists of the island of Grenada itself, two smaller islands, Carriacou and Pet ...

and parts of

Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago (, ), officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the main islands Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous much smaller islands, it is situated south of ...

. 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 Haitian Creole (; ht, kreyòl ayisyen, links=no, ; french: créole haïtien, links=no, ), commonly referred to as simply ''Creole'', or ''Kreyòl'' in the Creole language, is a French-based creole language spoken by 10–12million people wor ...

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 African and Carib influences to its syntax. In addition, many expressions reflect the presence of an English Creole and Spanish influences are also very much present in the language. In 1635, the French seized Guadeloupe and Martinique and began establishing sugar colonies. Dominica, for its part, had not been colonized because all attempts to colonize it had failed. Before 1690, lumberjacks (English and French) had traveled to Dominica for its forest resources. Subsequently, French from Martinique and Guadeloupe and their slaves settled in Dominica by establishing small farms of coffee, cotton, wood, and tobacco. Creole thus develops among the slaves, Dominican Creole thus comes from the mixture of the Creoles from Guadeloupe and Martinique, and then it is enriched further with Amerindian and English words. From now on, the Creole would stay until the present. Despite the future transfer of the island to the English and the addition of English words, the Creole remains strongly French in Dominica and despite what is said, is his place in the center of the Dominicans culture. The underdevelopment of the road system in Dominica hindered for a long time the development of English, the official language of the country, in isolated villages, where Creole remained the only spoken language.

Kwéyòl pronouns

Kwéyòl alphabet

Articles

Definite articles comes after the noun in Creole, unlike in French where they always precede the noun. "La" follows nouns that end with a consonant or "y". When a noun ends with a vowel, it is followed by "a" only.

Numbers

Cardinal

* 1 000 000 = yon milyon * 1 000 000 000 = yon milya * 1 234 = yon mil + dé san + twantkat * 30 153 = twant mil + san + senkantwa * 412 489 = (kat san douz) mil + kat san + katwèvennèf * 12 356 734 = (douz) milyon + (twa san+senkantsis) mil + sèt san+twantkat

Ordinal

*1st = pwémyè *2nd = dézyènm *3rd = twazyènm *4th = katriyènm *5th = senkyènm *6th = sizyènm (Notice the second "s" in "sis" is pronounced as a "z") *7th = sètyènm *8th = wityènm *9th = nèvyènm (Notice the "f" in "nèf" is pronounced as a "v") All the other numbers are formed like this: Number + ènm

References

{{Gallo-Romance languages and dialects French-based pidgins and creoles Languages of the Caribbean Languages of Dominica French language in the Americas