What do they speak in martinique

Let me share with some fun facts about French around the world. Now on to Belgium. The French-speaking community live in the southern Wallonia region and in the capital, Brussels. When I first heard it, I was a little bit confused!

I lived there for a while and it was an incredible experience! Click now to see all the great offers! Do People in Martinique Speak French?

Share on facebook Facebook. Share on twitter Twitter. Share on pinterest Pinterest. Maybe You Are Also Interested in Colombo is another signature dish which can be fish, chicken, pork or lamb seasoned with French, East Indian and West Indian spices, cooked in coconut milk, ginger and Colombo powder. Wash these delicacies down with a Ti Punch made from rhum agricole cane juice rum , a drop of sugar cane syrup and a squeeze of lime.

Finally, burn some calories dancing le Zouk , a type of reggae from the French Antilles. Every problem in Martinique can be solved with a dance of Zouk. Try Babbel. Toggle Menu. It was probably during this transitional period that the Creole language was born in the Antilles. Moreover, Labat , I: 98 attested the existence of a new language which was apparently not a pidgin, that is to say, not a rather unsystematic mixed language, but a language used by the slaves which had a fixed form:. I had the extreme urge to ask our Negroes about a lot of things that I saw and about which I wanted to be instructed; but I had to get rid of that desire because they were new Negroes who only spoke a corrupted language that I could hardly understand at all, but to which one soon becomes accustomed.

Labat , I: Labat , I: ; translation Melanie Halpap. Slavery in the French colonies was only abolished in At that time, there was a need in the Antilles for cheap labourers who would be able to take over from the freed Blacks. As a consequence, immigration from the poorest areas of India began: Between and , 25, Indians arrived in Martinique, up to 38, in Guadeloupe, and 8, in French Guiana Pluchon : Even if the Indian indentured workers, the last component of the ethnic mosaic in the Antilles, did not participate, properly speaking, in the process of linguistic creolization, they contributed significantly to the Creole lexicon: There are a considerable number of Indian loanwords mainly concerning the domains of fauna, flora, cuisine, religion, and music.

With this title, the islands had to submit to the same laws and decrees as France as well as to the same social organization and the same administration forms. Free public schooling, secular and obligatory, was introduced and established the French language as effectively the only official language.

While Creole was the only language of most Antilleans until the middle of the 20th century, with most people being practically monolingual in Creole, there has now been a progressive move towards coexistence with French up to the point that French has become the predominant language. In Guadeloupe and Martinique, the difficult coexistence between Creole and French, that is to say, between a stigmatized language and a prestigious language, is often described as a diglossic situation, although this interpretation does not entirely explain the linguistic reality cf.

Some works have highlighted the conflicting dimensions arising out of this contact between Creole and French cf. Guadeloupean and Martinican Creole are thus interacting with French in a dominant contact situation for the distinction between dominant and non-dominant contact situations, see Gadet et al.

Guadeloupean French:. Thomas, ne me fais pas te taper. Guadeloupean Creole :. Thomas neg faire 1sg for- 2sg hit. Standard French:. Martinican French:. Martinican Creole :. An example is 3 Ludwig et al. This situation of contact and competition between Creole and French has caused the two languages to interact, and this has led to French linguistic features being taken over into Creole.

Likewise, various changes in usage and in the competence of Creole speakers can be noted nowadays, which, over the years, have almost led to the disappearance of monolingual Creole speakers and to a general tendency towards a linguistic asymmetry in the sense that the people are more proficient in French than in Creole.

Bellonie The debate about possible changes of competence and the realization that there is basically only Creole-French bilingualism has led to talk about decreolization. Since the school was the main instrument which favoured the dominance of French, Antillean intellectuals and representatives of culture wanted to restore the continuity between the traditional socio-family environment and the educational system and therefore introduced Creole in schools.

The political activism of the Martinican and Guadeloupean activists and culture representatives, backed up by strong political action, led to the introduction of a degree programme of Regional Languages and Culture at the University of the French West Indies and Guiana in the s, the introduction of the teaching of regional languages and cultures in primary and secondary school by the Ministry of Education in and the creation of a recruitment concours for teachers for Regional Languages and Culture cf.

Reutner It must be pointed out that the distribution of the population, which is quite different in Guadeloupe and Martinique, also affects linguistic practices. Thus, the geographic expanse of the Guadeloupean archipelago and the relatively balanced population distribution bring about a certain heterogeneity of Guadeloupean Creole. Although no real study has been conducted on this question, the majority of Guadeloupeans identify the Creole of Basse-Terre as different from that of Grande-Terre, of Saintes, or of Marie-Galante, the latter having undergone less influence from French.

Moreover, the towns in the north and south of Martinique, which have a considerably smaller population, are experiencing ongoing migration towards the geographical centre, which is also the administrative, socio-economic, and socio-cultural centre. Map 3. Distribution of the population in Guadeloupe and Martinique. The inventories of vowels and consonants are shown in Tables 1 and 2. From a diachronic point of view, the following observations explain very well some of the modern-day features of the phonological systems of Guadeloupean and Martinican Creole :.

Table 1. A more generalized use of nasalization can be observed in Martinican Creole , which is both progressive before a nasal consonant and regressive after a nasal consonant ; in Guadeloupean Creole it is only progressive.

Otherwise, the phonological patterns of Guadeloupean and Martinican Creole can be summarized in the following way:. Table 2. Word stress is always on the last syllable. Phrase and sentence stress is also in final position. There are very few differences between Guadeloupean usage and Martinican usage:.

Even if the orthographic systems sketched above are widely used in Guadeloupe and Martinique, it must be mentioned that the debate on Creole orthography is not over and that some linguists have made alternative proposals.