Antiguan and Barbudan Creole

Antiguan and Barbudan Creole is an English-based creole language that emerged from contact between speakers of the Kwa languages and speakers of Antiguan and Barbudan English in the Leeward Islands. Today, it is natively spoken in Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Anguilla, Montserrat, and some villages in Dominica. Antiguan and Barbudan Creole is the most spoken language in two independent countries, and is one of the most spoken languages in the eastern Caribbean. The language has approximately 150,000 native speakers.

Antiguan and Barbudan Creole is composed of several distinct varieties, some of which are only semi-intelligible to each other. Due to increased contact between settlements in the Leeward Islands, the creole has many extinct village-specific varieties that have since merged into each other. The most spoken variety of the creole, North Antiguan, has been particularly affected by decreolisation and influences from other English creoles.

The majority of the Antiguan and Barbudan Creole vocabulary is English in origin, and the language has a unique vowel system as well as distinct grammar. Antiguan and Barbudan Creole remains a language of informal communication, and thus, it is not taught in schools or used in formal academic communication.