It’s easy to confuse the melody of the language of the Islanders with music. The archipelago is a sanctuary of slang and verbal cadences. The Islanders don’t speak not one, not two languages – instead many speak up to four languages. The way they walk, their expressions and the fluid dialogues, the happiness and emotion in each phrase that is woven with eloquent traces just touch on the way to describe the polyglot nature of the islanders.
The language of San Andres and Providencia isn’t just one. They speak Spanish, English, some French, not to mention Creole. English has a strong presence and importance in daily life. Near 80% of the Islanders speak it and 12% of the non-native Islanders have developed it to perfection.
On the other hand – and in accordance with Article 10 of the Constitution of Colombia of 1991 – Spanish is the “official language” of the islands. Though Creole is the language that has the biggest cultural charge, symbolic and historical for the native islanders of San Andres and Providencia.
Creole, a linguistic jewel, is a novel in and of itself: a history of European colonizers, cotton, slave traffickers, and indominable nature of women and men willing to survive the horrors of slavery through the secret and imaginative ties of language. Add the new grammatical constructions to keep the language alive, and Creole is a language that is the history, present, and future of islanders – an unbreakable tie to their heritage, ancestors, their pain and eventual freedom.
San Andres Creole is also expressed in dance, gestures, body movements, intonation, and rhythms. It’s a constant song, an invitation to joy. Creole is vigorous – emphasizing its prosody. This intensity is an inseparable trait of the language.
Now, to trace the origins of Creole, we have to skip a significant spacial-temporal distance and take into account the African language Akan (also known as twi, chi or ti). As Akan is Creole’s principle linguistic platform. It’s also noteworthy that Akan is a language spoken today, by millions of people, in the African Republic of Ghana.
In short, the languages of San Andres and Providencia are spoken depending on the context and necessities of the Islander. Spanish is used in daily life, commerce, public and administrative life. English is very common at church and moments that require a certain level of prestige, like closing business deals, impressing someone on your first date, and, of course, to speak to tourists and foreigners. Finally, the proud community uses Creole in their intimate lives – with family and friends. It’s a language of solidarity with nuances that only those who share its history can understand it.