French: The Official Voice

French remains the language of power: laws, education, administration, and formal media. But French in the Caribbean isn't metropolitan French—it's been créolized.

Antillean French

Caribbean French includes: - Creole syntax influencing French sentences - Local vocabulary for Caribbean realities - Intonation patterns from Creole - Code-switching mid-sentence

"A French person from Paris sometimes has trouble understanding us," laughs Dr. Marie-José Saint-Louis, sociolinguist. "We speak French, but it's our French, shaped by our reality."

Generational Differences

Young people navigate complex linguistic realities: - French at school - Creole with family - English from media - Mixed codes with peers

"My daughter speaks perfect academic French, street Creole, American English from Netflix, and creates new mixed forms with friends," observes parent Michaëlla Perina. "She's linguistically richer than any monolingual French person."