English-based creole languages

Creole language derived from the English language

"English creole" redirects here and is not to be confused with Middle English creole hypothesis.

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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

[edit]

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

[edit]

Name  | Country  | Number of speakers[4] | Notes

|
|
|

### Atlantic

[edit]

#### Western Caribbean

[edit]

Bahamian Creole |  Bahamas | 328,000 (2018)  |
Turks and Caicos Creole English |  Turks and Caicos | 34,400 (2019)  |
Bay Islands English |  Honduras | 22,500 (2001)
Jamaican Patois |  Jamaica | 3,043,280 (2001)  |
Cayman Islands English |  Cayman Islands | 84,400 (2019)  |
Belizean Creole |  Belize | 170,000 (2014)  |
Miskito Coast Creole |  Nicaragua | 18,400 (2009)  | Dialect: Rama Cay Creole
Limonese Creole |  Costa Rica | 55,100 (2013)  | Dialect of Jamaican Patois
Bocas del Toro Creole |  Panama | 268,000 (2000)  | Dialect of Jamaican Patois
San Andrés–Providencia Creole |  Colombia | 12,000 (1981)  |

#### Eastern Caribbean

[edit]

Virgin Islands Creole |  US Virgin Islands

British Virgin Islands

Sint Maarten

Puerto Rico[10]

Saint-Martin

Sint Eustatius

Saba

| 89,700 (2019)  |
Anguillan Creole |  Anguilla | 11,500 (2001)  | Dialect of Antiguan and Barbudan Creole
Antiguan Creole |  Antigua and Barbuda | 82,500 (2019)  | Dialect of Antiguan and Barbudan Creole
Saint Kitts Creole |  Saint Kitts and Nevis | 51,000 (2015)  | Dialect of Antiguan and Barbudan Creole
Montserrat Creole |  Montserrat | 5,130 (2020)  | Dialect of Antiguan and Barbudan Creole
Vincentian Creole |  Saint Vincent and the Grenadines | 108,000 (2016)  |
Grenadian Creole |  Grenada | 107,000 (2020)  |
Tobagonian Creole |  Trinidad and Tobago | 300,000 (2011)  |
Trinidadian Creole |  Trinidad and Tobago | 1,000,000 (2011)  |
Bajan Creole |  Barbados | 257,000 (2018)  |
Guyanese Creole |  Guyana | 715,200 (2021)  |
Sranan Tongo |  Suriname | 669,600 (2016–2018)  | Including 150,000 L2 users
Saramaccan |  Suriname | 34,500 (2018)  |
Ndyuka |  Suriname | 67,800 (2018)  | Dialects: Aluku, Paramaccan
Kwinti |  Suriname | 250 (2018)  |

#### Southern-Caribbean

[edit]

Venezuelan English Creole |  Venezuela | unknown, likely endangered (2018)  |
San Nicolaas English |  Aruba | 15,000 (estimation) (2020)  | Spoken in San Nicolaas, Aruba

#### North America

[edit]

Gullah |  United States | 300 (2023)  | Ethnic population: 250,000
Afro-Seminole Creole |  United States

Mexico

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

#### West Africa

[edit]

Krio |  Sierra Leone | 8,237,900 (2019)  | Including 7,420,000 L2 speakers
Kreyol |  Liberia | 5,113,000 (2015)  | Including 5,000,000 L2 speakers
Ghanaian Pidgin |  Ghana | 5,002,000 (2011)  |
Nigerian Pidgin |  Nigeria | 120,650,000 | Including 116,000,000 L2 users
Cameroonian Pidgin |  Cameroon | 12,000,000 (2017)  |
Equatorial Guinean Pidgin |  Equatorial Guinea | 200,000 (2020)  | Including 185,000 L2 users (2020)

### Pacific

[edit]

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 | 4,125,740 | Including 4,000,000 L2 users (2001)
Pijin |  Solomon Islands | 564,000 (2012–2019)  | 530,000 L2 users (1999)
Bislama |  Vanuatu | 12,570 (2011)  |
Pitcairn-Norfolk |  Pitcairn

Norfolk Island

| 1,786 | Almost no L2 users. Has been classified as an Atlantic Creole based on internal structure.[20]
Australian Kriol |  Australia | 17,160 | Including 10,000 L2 users (1991)
Torres Strait Creole |  Australia | 6,170 (2016)  |
Bonin English |  Japan | Possibly 1,000–2000 (2004)[citation needed] |
Singlish |  Singapore | 2,140,000[citation needed] |
Manglish |  Malaysia | 10,300,000[citation needed] |

## Marginal

[edit]

* Bonin English, sometimes considered a mixed language
* Iyaric ("Rastafarian")
* Jamaican Maroon Spirit Possession Language

## Other

[edit]

Not strictly creoles, but sometimes called thus:

* Bay Islands English
* Cayman Islands English

## See also

[edit]

* List of English-based pidgins
* Middle English creole hypothesis
* World Englishes
* Belter Creole

## Notes

[edit]

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

[edit]

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

[edit]

* Holm, John A., ed. (1983). Central American English. Heidelberg: Julius Groos Verlag. ISBN 3-87276-295-8.
* Holm, John A. (1989). "English-based varieties". Pidgins and Creoles. Vol. 2, Reference Survey. Cambridge University Press. pp. 405–551\. ISBN 978-0-521-35940-5.
* Holm, John A. (2000). An Introduction to Pidgins and Creoles. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-58581-1.
* Schreier, Daniel; Trudgill, Peter; Schneider, Edgar W.; Williams, Jeffrey P., eds. (2010). The Lesser-Known Varieties of English: An Introduction. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-139-48741-2.
* Arends, Jacques; Muysken, Pieter; Smith, Norval (1995). Pidgins and Creoles: An Introduction. John Benjamins Publishing. ISBN 90-272-5236-X.

## External links

[edit]

* Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures

* v
* t
* e

English-based creole languages of the Caribbean

* Anguilla
* Antigua and Barbuda
* Bahamas
* Barbados
* Belize
* Bermuda
* Bocas del Toro
* Cayman Islands
* Grenada
* Guyana
* Jamaica
* Limón
* Mosquito Coast
* Montserrat
* Rama Cay
* Roatán
* Saint Kitts
* Samaná
* San Andrés
* Saint Vincent
* Suriname
* Tobago
* Trinidad
* Turks and Caicos Islands
* Virgin Islands

* v
* t
* e

Dialects and accents of Modern English by continent

Europe|

| Great
Britain|

| England|

| North|

* Cheshire
* Cumbria
* Barrow
* Lancashire
* Liverpool/Scouse
* Manchester
* Northumbria
* Pitmatic
* Sunderland
* Tyneside/Geordie
* Teesside
* Yorkshire

|

Midlands|

* East Midlands
* West Midlands
* Birmingham
* Black Country
* Stoke-on-Trent

South|

* East Anglia
* London & Thames Estuary
* Cockney
* Multicultural
* Received Pronunciation
* West Country
* Cornwall
* Dorset

Scotland|

* Glasgow
* Highlands

Wales|

* Abercraf
* Cardiff
* Gower
* Port Talbot

Ireland|

* Dublin
* South-West
* Ulster

* Channel Islands
* Gibraltar
* Isle of Man
* Malta

Americas|

| North
America|

| Canada|

* Aboriginal
* Atlantic
* Lunenburg
* Newfoundland
* Multicultural Toronto
* Ottawa Valley
* Quebec
* Standard Canadian

|

United
States|

* Midland
* New England
* Boston
* East
* Maine
* West
* New York City
* accent
* North
* Inland North
* North-Central
* Philadelphia
* Baltimore
* South
* accent
* Appalachia
* Chesapeake/Outer Banks
* New Orleans
* Older South
* Texas
* West
* California
* Pacific Northwest
* Western Pennsylvania

Social and
ethno-cultural|

* African-American
* Vernacular
* American Indian
* Cajun
* Chicano
* General American
* Good American Speech
* Miami Latino
* New York Latino
* Northeastern elite
* Pennsylvania Dutch

Caribbean|

* Antigua and Barbuda
* The Bahamas
* Barbados
* Bequia
* Cayman Islands
* Bay Islands
* Jamaica
* Saba
* Samaná
* Trinidad and Tobago

* Bermuda
* Falkland Islands

Oceania|

| Australia|

* variation
* accent
* Aboriginal
* South
* Torres Strait
* West

|

* Fiji
* New Zealand
* accent
* Palau
* Solomon Islands

Africa|

* Cameroon
* The Gambia
* Ghana
* Kenya
* Liberia
* Malawi
* Namibia
* Nigeria
* Sierra Leone
* South Africa
* accent
* Cape Flats
* South Atlantic
* Uganda
* Zimbabwe

Asia|

| East Asia|

* Hong Kong

|

South Asia|

* Bangladesh
* India
* regional and occupational
* Maldives
* Nepal
* Pakistan
* Sri Lanka

Southeast Asia|

* Brunei
* Cambodia
* Malaysia
* Myanmar
* Philippines
* Singapore
* Thailand

Antarctica|

* Antarctica

Related|

* English language
* Basic
* Broad and general accents
* Comparison of American and British English
* E-Prime
* Engrish
* English as a lingua franca
* English-based creole languages
* Englishisation
* Globish
* Gogate
* Nerrière
* International
* Jewish English (Yeshiva English)
* Learning
* Linguistic purism in English
* List of English-based pidgins
* Non-native pronunciations of English
* Plain
* Standard

* v
* t
* e

English-based creole languages

Africa|

* Krio (Sierra Leone)
* Aku (The Gambia)
* Merico
* West Africa
* Cameroon
* Ghana
* Liberia
* Nigeria
* Pichinglis (Equatorial Guinea)

Caribbean|

| Eastern|

* Antigua and Barbuda
* Anguilla
* Montserrat
* Saint Kitts
* Barbados
* Grenada
* Gullah (United States)
* Afro-Seminole Creole (United States)
* Guyana
* Kwinti (Suriname)
* Ndyuka (French Guiana and Suriname)
* Aluku (French Guiana and Suriname)
* Saramaccan (French Guiana and Suriname; English and Portuguese based)
* Matawai (Suriname)
* Sranan Tongo (Suriname)
* Tobago
* Trinidad
* Saint Vincent
* Virgin Islands

|

Western|

* Bahamas
* Belize
* Jamaican Maroon
* Jamaican Patois
* Bocas del Toro (Panama)
* Limonese Creole (Costa Rica)
* Miskito Coast (Nicaragua)
* Rama Cay (Nicaragua)
* San Andrés–Providencia (Colombia)
* Turks and Caicos

Asia and the Pacific|

* Australian Aborginal
* Bonin Islands
* Hawaiian Pidgin
* Malaysia
* Melanesia
* Bislama (Vanuatu)
* Pijin (Solomon Islands)
* Tok Pisin (Papua New Guinea)
* Ngatikese Creole (Micronesia)
* Pitcairn-Norfolk
* Singapore
* Torres Strait Islands

Authority control databases: National |

* Germany
* United States
* Israel

|

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