Vincentian Creole
Vincentian Creole is an English-based creole language spoken in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. It contains elements of French and Antillean Creole, and various Iberian Romance languages. It has also been influenced by the indigenous Kalinago/Garifuna elements and by African language brought over the Atlantic Ocean by way of the slave trade. Over the years the creole has changed to be more English-based. It does not have the status of an official language
Pronunciation
- Hard sounds at the end of words are avoided. There are mainly two ways hard sounds are evaded:
- * by changing the order of the sounds. Example: "ask" is rendered as "aks"
- * by dropping the last sound. Example: "desk" pronounced as "dess" and "tourist" as "touriss"
- For words ending in "-er", the "-er" sound changes to an "ah" sound. Example: "never" is pronounced as "nevah" and clever as "clevah"
- For words ending in "-th", the soft "-th" sound is replaced by the hard "t" sound as if the "h" were dropped. Example: "with" is rendered as "wit" and "earth" as "eart"
- For words ending in "-own", the "-own" is rendered as "-ung". Examples: down is rendered "dung" and town is rendered "tung"
- Words beginning with "dr" change to " j". Examples: driver is rendered 'jiver' and "drop off" as "jop off"
Grammar
The subject pronouns are as shown in the following table.
| Pronouns | Origin | English Equivalent |
| me | me | I or me |
| yo | you | you |
| e/i | he | he/she/it |
| ahwe | all of we | we or us |
| aryo/alyo | all of you | you |
| dem/demdey | them/them there | they or them |
With regards to tense, the present tense is indicated by the use of the modal "does" or by the use of the present participle ending in "-ing". The past tense is indicated by the use of either what is in English the plural form of the present tense of the verb, the modal "did", "been"/"bin" or the past participle of the verb. The future tense is indicated by the use of the present participle of the verb "to go", which is "going", or the plural form of the verb, "go".
| Tense | Example |
| Present | Me does give / Me givin' |
| Past | Me give / Me did give / Me bin give |
| Future | Me gine give/ Me gwine give / Me go give |