Afro-Creole Languages Week Launches Live on National Television in Barbados
Afro-Creole Languages Week has officially stepped onto the global stage.
Founder Ifẹ́ Thompson joined Pearson Bowen live on CBC News Barbados’ Good Morning Barbados to announce Afro-Creole Languages Week, a new global initiative championing the celebration, protection and advancement of Afro-Creole languages.
Taking place annually from 1–8 September, the Week brings together communities across Africa, the Caribbean and the wider Black diaspora around a shared mission: ensuring Afro-Creole languages are recognised not simply as ways of speaking, but as languages carrying history, identity, knowledge and generations of cultural memory.
Speaking about the initiative following the interview, Thompson described Afro-Creole Languages Week as deeply spiritually guided and rooted in the struggle for linguistic justice.
“Language carries our history, identity, and dignity, making the fight for language rights essential to achieving true structural equality.”
The television appearance introduced audiences across Barbados to the vision behind the Week and its inaugural 2026 theme, The Future Speaks Afro-Creole.
From Jamaican Patwa and Haitian Kreyòl to Krio, Kwéyòl, Gullah Geechee, Nigerian Pidgin, Kabuverdianu and many more, the Week calls on communities to celebrate the languages our ancestors created, protected and passed forward—and ensure future generations can do the same.
The future speaks Afro-Creole.
