Arising first during the period of slavery, Creole languages were a result of the forced migration of African peoples to work on the European owned plantations throughout the region. Simply put, a creole, or patois language is a combination of African syntax (sentence structure) with a European lexicon (words). It arose out of a need for the slaves, with their knowledge of African languages, to communicate in a language closer to that of their overseers. The ensuing combinations of French and African produced the French Creole, spoken (with national variations) in Haiti, Martinique, Guadaloupe, St. Lucia, Dominica and French Guyana. In the Dutch-influenced islands, the combination of Dutch, Portugese, English and African resulted in Papiamento. And in Jamaica, Patwa.

These various creoles have been spoken by the majority of peoples in the Caribbean for over two hundred years. Because historically creole was spoken mainly by a group of people who had been denied educational opportunities, it became associated with the poor and laboring classes, and often families would forbid their children from learning or speaking it, encouraging them instead to become proficient in the dominent European language alone. In recent decades this is changing. Growing numbers of 'nationalist' movements are recognizing the cultural importance of creole, its rich expressive linguistic potentials, and its place in the forging of our national identity.