Abstract
Oral literature in Creole has existed since the colony's earliest days. The first insertions of words and expressions in Creole appeared in the 19th century, at a time when speech was beginning to be directed towards the country rather than the outside world. Since then, this movement has never really stopped. But it was in the mid-1900s 1940s, with the first attempts at a Creole alphabet, Jacques Roumain's novel Gouverneurs de la Rosée, and the texts of Morisseau-Leroy, that written literary Creole began to show its immense possibilities. This trend was later confirmed by Frankétienne, Georges Castera and Frank Fouché. Alongside the oral Creole literature that emerged two or three decades ago, young poets are enriching the Creole-language corpus. This vitality is underpinned by the fact that Creole, elevated to the status of an official language like French, has become central to the public sphere, despite the absence of a genuine language planning policy.
