French Guianese Creole (Kriyòl; also called variously Guianan Creole, Guianese Creole in English and Créole guyanais or Guyanais in French) is a French-based

creole language A creole language, or simply creole, is a stable natural language that develops from the simplifying and mixing of different languages into a new one within a fairly brief period of time: often, a pidgin evolved into a full-fledged language. ...

spoken in

French Guiana French Guiana ( or ; french: link=no, Guyane ; gcr, label=French Guianese Creole, Lagwiyann ) is an overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France on the northern Atlantic coast of South America in the Guianas. ...

, and to a lesser degree, in Suriname and Guyana. It resembles

Antillean Creole Antillean Creole (Antillean French Creole, Kreyol, Kwéyòl, Patois) is a French-based creole that is primarily spoken in the Lesser Antilles. Its grammar and vocabulary include elements of Carib, English, and African languages. Antillean Creo ...

, but there are some lexical and grammatical differences between them. Antilleans can generally understand French Guianese Creole, though there may be some instances of confusion. The differences consist of more French and Brazilian

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

influences (due to the proximity of Brazil and Portuguese presence in the country for several years). There are also words of

Amerindian The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the inhabitants of the Americas before the arrival of the European settlers in the 15th century, and the ethnic groups who now identify themselves with those peoples. Many Indigenous peoples of the A ...

and African origin. There are French Guianese communities in Suriname and Guyana who continue to speak the language. It should not be confused with the

Guyanese Creole language Guyanese English Creole (''Creolese'' by its speakers or simply Guyanese) is an English-based creole language spoken by the Guyanese people. Linguistically, it is similar to other English dialects of the Caribbean region, based on 19th-century ...

, based on English, spoken in nearby Guyana.

History

French Guianese Creole was a language spoken between slaves and

settler A settler is a person who has migrated to an area and established a permanent residence there, often to colonize the area. A settler who migrates to an area previously uninhabited or sparsely inhabited may be described as a pioneer. Settl ...

s. But the conditions of French Guianese Creole's constitution were quite different from the Creole of the West Indies, on the one hand because of the conflicts between French, English, Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish, and French dialects such as the Caen have greatly influenced French Guianese Creole, which has made it significantly different from the Creoles of Martinique, Haiti, St. Lucia and Guadeloupe. There are, therefore, in French Guianese Creole many words in common with the Creoles of the West Indies. However, a number of words differentiate them significantly. In addition, in French Guiana, the letter '''r' ''is mostly preserved in onset position, whereas in the West Indies the pronunciation of'' 'r' ''tends rather to approximate the semi-vowel /w/''.'' Possessive determiners are placed before the noun:

Orthography and phonology

French Guianese Creole is largely written using the

French alphabet French orthography encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the French language. It is based on a combination of phonemic and historical principles. The spelling of words is largely based on the pronunciation of Old French c. 1100–1200 AD, ...

, with only a few exceptions. 'Q' and 'X' are replaced by 'k' and 'z' respectively. 'C' is not used apart from in the digraph, ch, where it stands for (the word for horse is ''chouval'', similar to French's ''cheval''). Otherwise, it is replaced by 'k' when it stands for (Standard French's ''comment'' (how) is written ''kouman'') and 's', when it stands for . Silent 'h' is never written, unlike in Standard French, where it remains for etymological reasons. The diphthong 'OU' is replaced by 'w' when it stands for . The diphthong 'OI' is replaced by 'we', but by 'o' in the words "mo" and "to".

Examples

References

{{Gallo-Romance languages and dialects French-based pidgins and creoles French Guianan culture Languages of French Guiana Languages of the African diaspora French language in the Americas