The Linguistic Landscape

"When I speak French, I am performing for France. When I speak Creole, I am home," says Marie-Line Dahomay, a teacher in Fort-de-France. Her words capture the complex linguistic reality of the French Caribbean, where languages carry history, identity, and power in every syllable.

The French Caribbean's soundscape reveals its layered history: French dominating government offices and schools, various Creoles ruling markets and intimate conversations, English creeping in through media and tourism, traces of Indian languages in religious ceremonies, and whispers of African and Indigenous languages that survived centuries of suppression.