Creole Languages

creole languages, vernacular languages that developed in colonial European plantation settlements in the 17th and 18th centuries as a result of contact between groups that spoke mutually unintelligible languages. Creole languages most often emerged in colonies located near the coasts of the Atlantic Ocean or the Indian Ocean. Exceptions include Brazil, where no creole emerged, and Cape Verde and the Lesser Antilles, where creoles developed in slave depots rather than on plantations.

Most commonly, creoles have resulted from the interactions between speakers of nonstandard varieties of European languages and speakers of non-European languages. Creole languages include varieties that are based on French, such as Haitian Creole, Louisiana Creole, and Mauritian Creole; English, such as Gullah (on the Sea Islands of the southeastern United States), Jamaican Creole, Guyanese Creole, and Hawaiian Creole; and Portuguese, such as Papiamentu (in Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao) and Cape Verdean; and some have bases in multiple European languages, such as two creoles found in Suriname, Saramacca (based on English and heavily influenced by Portuguese) and Sranan (based on English and heavily influenced by Dutch). Papiamentu is thought to have also been heavily influenced by Spanish.

Some linguists extend the term creole to varieties that emerged from contacts between primarily non-European languages. Examples from Africa include Sango, a creole based on the Ngbandi language and spoken in the Central African Republic; Kinubi, based on the Arabic language and spoken in Uganda; and Kikongo-Kituba and Lingala, which are based on Kikongo-Kimanyanga and Bobangi, respectively, and are spoken in both the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo.