English-based creole languages

An English-based creole language (often shortened to English creole) is a creole language for which English was the lexifier, meaning that at the time of its formation the vocabulary of English served as the basis for the majority of the creole's lexicon.[1] Most English creoles were formed in British colonies, following the great expansion of British naval military power and trade in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. The main categories of English-based creoles are Atlantic (the Americas and Africa) and Pacific (Asia and Oceania).

Over 76.5 million people globally are estimated to speak an English-based creole. Sierra Leone, Malaysia, Nigeria, Ghana, Jamaica, and Singapore have the largest concentrations of creole speakers.

Origin

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It is disputed to what extent the various English-based creoles of the world share a common origin. The monogenesis hypothesis[2][3] posits that a single language, commonly called proto–Pidgin English, spoken along the West African coast in the early sixteenth century, was ancestral to most or all of the Atlantic creoles (the English creoles of both West Africa and the Americas).

Table of creole languages

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Name Country Number of speakers[4] Notes

Atlantic

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Western Caribbean

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Bahamian Creole   Bahamas 330,000 (2018)
Turks and Caicos Creole English   Turks and Caicos 34,000 (2019)
Jamaican Patois   Jamaica 3,000,000 (2001)
Belizean Creole   Belize 170,000 (2014)
Miskito Coast Creole   Nicaragua 18,000 (2009) Dialect: Rama Cay Creole
Limonese Creole   Costa Rica 55,000 (2013) Dialect of Jamaican Patois
Bocas del Toro Creole   Panama 270,000 (2000) Dialect of Jamaican Patois
San Andrés–Providencia Creole   Colombia 12,000 (1981)

Eastern Caribbean

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Virgin Islands Creole   US Virgin Islands

  British Virgin Islands

  Sint Maarten

  Puerto Rico[10]

  Saint-Martin

  Sint Eustatius

  Saba

90,000 (2019)
Anguillan Creole   Anguilla 12,000 (2001) Dialect of Leeward Caribbean English Creole
Antiguan Creole   Antigua and Barbuda 83,000 (2019) Dialect of Leeward Caribbean English Creole
Saint Kitts Creole   Saint Kitts and Nevis 51,000 (2015) Dialect of Leeward Caribbean English Creole
Montserrat Creole   Montserrat 5,100 (2020) Dialect of Leeward Caribbean English Creole
Vincentian Creole   Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 110,000 (2016)
Grenadian Creole   Grenada 110,000 (2020)
Tobagonian Creole   Trinidad and Tobago 300,000 (2011)
Trinidadian Creole   Trinidad and Tobago 1,000,000 (2011)
Bajan Creole   Barbados 260,000 (2018)
Guyanese Creole   Guyana 720,000 (2021)
Sranan Tongo   Suriname 670,000 (2016–2018) Including 150,000 L2 users
Saramaccan   Suriname 35,000 (2018)
Ndyuka   Suriname 68,000 (2018) Dialects: Aluku, Paramaccan
Kwinti   Suriname 250 (2018)

Southern-Caribbean

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Venezuelan English Creole   Venezuela unknown, likely endangered (2018)
San Nicolaas English   Aruba 15.000 (estimation) (2020) Spoken in San Nicolaas, Aruba

North America

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Gullah   United States 390 (2015) Ethnic population: 250,000
Afro-Seminole Creole   United States

  Mexico

200 (1990)[11][12][a] Dialect of the Gullah language

West Africa

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Krio   Sierra Leone 8,200,000 (2019) Including 7,400,000 L2 speakers
Kreyol   Liberia 5,100,000 (2015) Including 5,000,000 L2 speakers
Ghanaian Pidgin   Ghana 5,000,000 (2011)
Nigerian Pidgin   Nigeria 120,000,000 Including 120,000,000 L2 users
Cameroonian Pidgin   Cameroon 12,000,000 (2017)
Equatorial Guinean Pidgin   Equatorial Guinea 200,000 (2020) Including 190,000 L2 users (2020)

Pacific

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Hawaiian Pidgin[b]   Hawaii

  United States

600,000 (2015) Including 400,000 L2 users[19]
Ngatikese Creole   Micronesia 700 (1983)
Tok Pisin   Papua New Guinea 4,100,000 Including 4,000,000 L2 users (2001)
Pijin   Solomon Islands 560,000 (2012–2019) 530,000 L2 users (1999)
Bislama   Vanuatu 13,000 (2011)
Pitcairn-Norfolk   Pitcairn

  Norfolk Island

1,800 Almost no L2 users. Has been classified as an Atlantic Creole based on internal structure.[20]
Australian Kriol   Australia 17,000 Including 10,000 L2 users (1991)
Torres Strait Creole   Australia 6,200 (2016)
Bonin English   Japan Possibly 1,000–2,000 (2004)[citation needed]
Singlish   Singapore 2,100,000[citation needed]
Manglish   Malaysia 10,000,000[citation needed]

Marginal

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Other

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Not strictly creoles, but sometimes called thus:

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ According to Encyclopedia Britannica, Black Seminoles have also been known as Seminole Maroons or Seminole Freedmen and were a group of free blacks and runaway slaves who joined with a group of Native Americans in Florida after the Spanish abolished slavery there in 1793.[13]
  2. ^ Although Hawaii is part of the United States, Hawaiian Pidgin is mostly considered as a Pacific creole language rather than Atlantic, this is further mentioned in John Holm's "An Introduction to Pidgins and Creoles". Therefore, it does not have to follow its political boundaries on being a U.S. state.[14]

References

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  1. ^ Velupillai, Viveka (2015). Pidgins, Creoles and Mixed Languages. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. p. 519. ISBN 978-90-272-5272-2.
  2. ^ Hancock, I. F. (1969). "A provisional comparison of the English-based Atlantic creoles". African Language Review. 8: 7–72.
  3. ^ Gilman, Charles (1978). "A Comparison of Jamaican Creole and Cameroon Pidgin English". English Studies. 59: 57–65. doi:10.1080/00138387808597871.
  4. ^ Eberhard, David M.; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D., eds. (2022). Ethnologue: Languages of the World (25th ed.). Dallas, Texas: SIL International.
  5. ^ "Virgin Islands English Creole". Ethnologue. Retrieved 27 March 2023.
  6. ^ Villanueva Feliciano, Orville Omar. 2009. A Contrastive analysis of English Influences on the Lexicon of Puerto Rican Spanish in Puerto Rico and St. Croix
  7. ^ "Virgin Islands Creole English". Find a Bible. Retrieved 11 February 2023.
  8. ^ Staff Consortium. "What Does the USVI and Puerto Rico Have in Common? A Summary of a Stimulating Discussion on Self-Determination in the Virgin Islands". The Virgin Islands Consortium. Retrieved 10 July 2022.
  9. ^ Sprawe, Gilbert A. "About Man Betta Man, Fission and Fusion, and Creole, Calypso and Cultural Survival in the Virgin Islands" (PDF). Retrieved 6 April 2023.
  10. ^ [5][6][7][8][9]
  11. ^ "Afro-Seminole Creole". Ethnologue. Retrieved 11 February 2023.
  12. ^ "Creoles in Texas – 'The Afro-Seminoles'." Kreol Magazine. March 28, 2014. Accessed April 11, 2018.
  13. ^ Kuiper, Kathleen. "Black Seminoles." In: Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed April 13, 2018.
  14. ^ Holm, John A. (2000). An introduction to pidgin and creoles. Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press. p. 95. ISBN 9780521584609.
  15. ^ Sasaoka, Kyle (2019). "Toward a writing system for Hawai'i Creole". ScholarSpace.
  16. ^ Velupillai, Viveka (2013). Hawai'i Creole. pp. 252–261. ISBN 978-0-19-969140-1. {{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help)
  17. ^ "Hawai'i Pidgin". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2018-06-25.
  18. ^ Velupillai, Viveka (2013), "Hawai'i Creole structure dataset", Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures Online, Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, retrieved 2021-08-20
  19. ^ [15][16][17][18]
  20. ^ Avram, Andrei (2003). "Pitkern and Norfolk revisited". English Today. 19 (1): 44–49. doi:10.1017/S0266078403003092. S2CID 144835575.

Further reading

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