What Languages Are Spoken In Saint Lucia?

Saint Lucia is a tropical island country that lies on the eastern side of the Caribbean Sea. It forms part of the Lesser Antilles and is the second largest of the Windward group.It is south of Martinique and north of the islands of Grenadines and Saint Vincent. All the signposts are in English or have a translation. The road signs are all in standard symbols and written in English. A large part of the inhabitants of the island is black with a small minority of mulattoes and other mixtures. The remaining population is white or of East Indian descent.

The Official Language Of Saint Lucia

English is the official language in the island country of Saint Lucia. The language can be traced back to the 16th century when the British established a colony in the Caribbean. A small group of English attempted to establish a settlement in 1605, and another group attempted to establish a colony in 1638 but were all murdered by the local Caribs. Later in 1814 the British ultimately took possession of St. Lucia after the treaty of Paris and effectively became a colony.In 1979 the Island became independent and English language had been established in the Island.

Saint Lucian Creole French

The Creole is also known as patois or Patwa, and it is used by approximately 95% of the local population. Saint Lucian Creole French is a variant of the Antillean Creole language family and is widely used in music and literature. The language is appreciated and has gained official status in the Island. The language has its roots in the period of the French colonization of the island, and it is derived from the French and West African languages, while some of its vocabularies are borrowed the Carib and other languages. Saint Lucian Creole French like other Caribbean creoles combines syntax that have origin in the Carib and African languages with some words with French roots. The language exhibits different expressions that mirror presence of Spanish and English Creole effects. Although Saint Lucian Creole French is not mutually intelligible with ordinary French, it is comprehensible with other Lesser Antilles French Creoles and shows a close relationship with Haitian Creole. The Saint Lucia Creole French has Lexical, grammatical, and syntactic features that are fundamentally identical to the Martinican Creole, though it has more English loan words like the Dominican Creole than the Martinican Creole

Indigenous Languages Of Saint Lucia

There were many indigenous languages spoken in Saint Lucia but the majority are extinct today. The Arawak people who mainly occupied south America and particularly the Caribbean are referred to as the Lokono and the Taino who lived in the northern Lesser Antilles and the Greater Antilles in the Caribbean. Another indigenous language family that was prevalent in the larger south American region was Cariban language. Before the Spanish explorers arrived in the Caribbean, Caribs invaded and occupied the lesser Antilles, and the language was mixed with the Arawak. Hixkaryana and Macushi are some of the Cariban languages. The Island Carib language was extinct in the 1920s in the Lesser Antilles, but its variant Garifuna exists in Central America. The only pre-Columbian population of the Carib Indians exists only in the Dominica.