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The Sierra Leonean Creole or Krio is an
English-based creole language
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 cr ...
that is the
lingua franca
A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, link language or language of wider communication (LWC), is a Natural language, language systematically used to make co ...
and
de facto national language
'' ''
A national language is a language (or language variant, e.g. dialect) that has some connection— de facto or de jure—with a nation. The term is applied quite differently in various contexts. One or more languages spoken as first languag ...
spoken throughout the West African nation of
Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered to the southeast by Liberia and by Guinea to the north. Sierra Leone's land area is . It has a tropical climate and envi ...
. Krio is spoken by 96 percent of the country's population,
and it unites the different ethnic groups in the country, especially in their trade and social interaction with each other.
Krio is the primary language of communication among Sierra Leoneans at home and abroad, and has also heavily influenced
Sierra Leonean English. The language is native to the
Sierra Leone Creole people
The Sierra Leone Creole people () are an ethnic group of Sierra Leone. The Sierra Leone Creole people are descendants of freed African-American, Afro-Caribbean, and Liberated African slaves who settled in the Western Area of Sierra Leone be ...
, or Krios, a community of about 104,311
descendants of freed slaves from the
West Indies
The West Indies is an island subregion of the Americas, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, which comprises 13 independent island country, island countries and 19 dependent territory, dependencies in thr ...
,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...
,
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
and the
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, Crown colony, colonies, protectorates, League of Nations mandate, mandates, and other Dependent territory, territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It bega ...
, and is spoken as a second language by millions of other Sierra Leoneans belonging to
the country's indigenous tribes. English is Sierra Leone's
official language
An official language is defined by the Cambridge English Dictionary as, "the language or one of the languages that is accepted by a country's government, is taught in schools, used in the courts of law, etc." Depending on the decree, establishmen ...
, and Krio, despite its common use throughout the country, has no official status.
Overview
The Krio language is an offshoot of the languages and variations of English brought by the
Nova Scotian Settlers
The Nova Scotian Settlers, or Sierra Leone Settlers (also known as the Nova Scotians or more commonly as the Settlers), were Black Britons or Black Canadians who founded the settlement of Freetown, Sierra Leone and the Colony of Sierra Leone, ...
from
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...
,
Maroons
Maroons are descendants of Africans in the Americas and islands of the Indian Ocean who escaped from slavery, through flight or manumission, and formed their own settlements. They often mixed with Indigenous peoples, eventually evolving into ...
from
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies. At , it is the third-largest island—after Cuba and Hispaniola—of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, west of Hispaniola (the is ...
, and the numerous liberated African slaves who settled in Sierra Leone.
All freed slaves—the
Jamaican Maroons
Jamaican Maroons descend from Africans who freed themselves from slavery in the Colony of Jamaica and established communities of Free black people in Jamaica, free black people in the island's mountainous interior, primarily in the eastern Pari ...
,
African-Americans
African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...
, and
Liberated Africans—influenced Krio, but the Jamaican Maroons,
Igbo,
Yoruba and
Akan Liberated Africans were the most influential. It seems probable that the basic grammatical structure and vowel system of Krio is an offshoot of
Jamaican Maroon Creole spoken by the Maroons, as there are well-documented and important direct historical connections between Jamaica
and Sierra Leone. The language was also influenced by
African American Vernacular English
African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) is the variety of English natively spoken, particularly in urban communities, by most working- and middle-class African Americans and some Black Canadians. Having its own unique grammatical, voca ...
while the majority of the African words in Krio come from the
Akan,
Yoruba and
Igbo.
As an English-based creole
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 cr ...
language, the Sierra Leone Krio is distinct from a pidgin
A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified form of contact language that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn f ...
as it is a language in its own right, with fixed grammatical structures and rules. Krio also draws from other European languages
There are over 250 languages indigenous to Europe, and most belong to the Indo-European language family. Out of a total European population of 744 million as of 2018, some 94% are native speakers of an Indo-European language. The three larges ...
, like Portuguese and French, e.g. the Krio word /, which means wealth or to acquire wealth, is derived from the Old French
Old French (, , ; ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France approximately between the late 8th word 'gentry">-4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it wa ...
word 'gentry', and the Krio word , which means 'child', indirectly comes from the
Portuguese word meaning 'small' and often used to mean children in Portuguese.
In
Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered to the southeast by Liberia and by Guinea to the north. Sierra Leone's land area is . It has a tropical climate and envi ...
, the Krio Language is spoken by people with different degrees of fluency, as well as regional changes to the Krio. Many of the speakers of Sierra Leone Krio live in or close to the capital city,
Freetown
Freetown () is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Sierra Leone. It is a major port city on the Atlantic Ocean and is located in the Western Area of the country. Freetown is Sierra Leone's major urban, economic, financial, cultural, e ...
. As of 2007, there were close to 350,000 individuals who spoke Krio as a primary language. Even more individuals were using it as a main language for communication purposes in the country as a whole.
Language origins
One theory suggests the early roots of Krio go back to the
Atlantic slave trade
The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of Slavery in Africa, enslaved African people to the Americas. European slave ships regularly used the triangular trade route and its Middle Pass ...
era in the 17th and 18th centuries when an English-based "
pidgin
A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified form of contact language that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn f ...
" language (
West African Pidgin English, also called Guinea Coast Creole English) arose to facilitate the coastal trade between Europeans and Africans. This early pidgin later became the lingua franca of regional trade among West Africans themselves and likely spread up the river systems to the African interior. After the founding of Freetown, this preexisting pidgin was incorporated into the speech of the various groups of freed slaves landed in Sierra Leone between 1787 and about 1855. The pidgin gradually evolved to become a stable language, the native language of descendants of the freed slaves (which are now a distinct ethnic and cultural group, the Creoles), and the lingua franca of Sierra Leone.
Language usage
Krio usage in Sierra Leone
Most ethnic and cultural Creoles live in and around
Freetown
Freetown () is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Sierra Leone. It is a major port city on the Atlantic Ocean and is located in the Western Area of the country. Freetown is Sierra Leone's major urban, economic, financial, cultural, e ...
, the capital of Sierra Leone, and their community accounts for about 3% to 6% of Sierra Leone's total population (Freetown is the province where the returned slaves from London and
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, located on its east coast. It is one of the three Maritime Canada, Maritime provinces and Population of Canada by province and territory, most populous province in Atlan ...
settled). However, because of their cultural influence in Sierra Leone, especially during the period of colonial rule, their language is used as the lingua franca among all the ethnic groups in Sierra Leone.
Krio speakers abroad
The Sierra Leone Creole people acted as traders and missionaries in other parts of West Africa during the 19th century, and as a result, there are also Krio-speaking communities in
The Gambia
The Gambia, officially the Republic of The Gambia, is a country in West Africa. Geographically, The Gambia is the List of African countries by area, smallest country in continental Africa; it is surrounded by Senegal on all sides except for ...
,
Nigeria
Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...
,
Cameroon
Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon, is a country in Central Africa. It shares boundaries with Nigeria to the west and north, Chad to the northeast, the Central African Republic to the east, and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the R ...
,
Equatorial Guinea
Equatorial Guinea, officially the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, is a country on the west coast of Central Africa. It has an area of . Formerly the colony of Spanish Guinea, its post-independence name refers to its location both near the Equ ...
,
Senegal
Senegal, officially the Republic of Senegal, is the westernmost country in West Africa, situated on the Atlantic Ocean coastline. It borders Mauritania to Mauritania–Senegal border, the north, Mali to Mali–Senegal border, the east, Guinea t ...
, and
Guinea
Guinea, officially the Republic of Guinea, is a coastal country in West Africa. It borders the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Guinea-Bissau to the northwest, Senegal to the north, Mali to the northeast, Côte d'Ivoire to the southeast, and Sier ...
. As a result of Sierra Leone Creole migratory patterns, in the Gambia, the
Gambian Creoles or
Aku community speak Krio. The
Fernando Po Creole English language of Equatorial Guinea is also largely a result of Sierra Leone Creole migrants. A small number of liberated Africans returned to the land of their origins, such as the
Saros of Nigeria who not only took their Western names with them but also imported Krio words like ''sabi'' into
Nigerian Pidgin English.
Language revival
During the period of colonial rule, Sierra Leoneans (particularly among the upper class) were discouraged from speaking Krio; but after
independence
Independence is a condition of a nation, country, or state, in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the status of ...
from the United Kingdom in 1961, writers and educators began promoting its use. In the 1960s,
Thomas Decker translated some of
Shakespeare's plays
Shakespeare's plays are a canon of approximately 39 dramatic works written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare. The exact number of plays as well as their classifications as Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy, Shakespearean histor ...
into Krio, and composed original poetry in the language. In the 1980s, the
New Testament
The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...
was translated into Krio. Beginning with the involvement of Lutheran Bible Translators, Krio-language translations of the New Testament and
Old Testament
The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...
were published in 1986 and 2013.
While English is Sierra Leone's official language, the
Ministry of Education
An education ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for education. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of Education, Department of Education, and Ministry of Pub ...
began using Krio as the medium of instruction in some primary schools in Freetown in the 1990s. Radio stations now broadcast a wide variety of programs in Krio. Sierra Leonean politicians also routinely give public speeches in the language.
Classification
Krio is an
English-based creole
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 cr ...
from which descend
Nigerian Pidgin English and
Cameroonian Pidgin English
Cameroonian Pidgin English, or Cameroonian Creole (, from West Coast), is a language variety of Cameroon. It is also known as Kamtok (from 'Cameroon-talk'). It is primarily spoken in the Northwest Region (Cameroon), North West and Southwest Regio ...
and
Pichinglis. It is also similar to English-based creole languages spoken in the Americas, especially
Jamaican Patois
Jamaican Patois (; locally rendered Patwah and called Jamaican Creole by linguists) is an English-based creole language with influences from West African, Arawak, Spanish and other languages, spoken primarily in Jamaica and among the Jamaican ...
(Jamaican Creole),
Sranan Tongo
Sranan Tongo (Sranantongo, "Surinamese tongue", Sranan, Surinamese Creole) is an English-based creole language from Suriname, in South America, where it is the first or second language for 519,600 Surinamese people (approximately 80% of the popu ...
(Surinamese Creole),
Bajan Creole
Bajan ( ), or Bajan Creole, is an English-based creole language with West/Central African and British influences spoken on the Caribbean island of Barbados. Bajan is primarily a spoken language, meaning that in general, standard English is used ...
and
Gullah language
Gullah (also called Gullah-English, Sea Island Creole English, and Geechee) is a creole language spoken by the Gullah people (also called "Geechees" within the community), an African American population living in coastal regions of South Car ...
, but it has its own distinctive character. It also shares some
linguistic
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...
similarities with non-English creoles, such as the
French-based creoles of the Caribbean.
Phonology
Krio contains seven
monophthongs
A monophthong ( ) is a pure vowel sound, or one whose articulation at beginning and end is relatively fixed, with the tongue moving neither up nor down and neither forward nor backward towards a new position of articulation. A monophthong can be ...
in its inventory of
vowels
A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...
, all of which can be nasalized. Most nasal vowels occur in words derived from English, in cases where an oral vowel precedes a nasal
consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...
. The nasal consonant is deleted and the vowel is nasalized.
[ Text was copied from this source, which is available under ]
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Vowels
Krio has three
diphthongs
A diphthong ( ), also known as a gliding vowel or a vowel glide, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of ...
: /ai/, /au/, and /ɔi/.
Consonants
There are 24
phonemes
A phoneme () is any set of similar speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word from another. All languages con ...
in the consonant inventory of Krio.
''Consonant cluster reduction'' is a common process in phonology. It is typically applied to lexical items in English containing two or more consonants in a row including an initial ''s''. Some examples include:
Replacing a stop for a fricative, known as ''stopping substitution'', is also common in words of English origin. Some examples include:
There is also evidence of the influence of West African languages in the presence of the
labial-velar plosive
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases.
The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lip ...
s /kp/ and /gb/, as in:
Krio is a
tonal language
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or to inflect words. All oral languages use pitch to express emotional and other para-linguistic information and to convey emphasi ...
and makes contrastive use of tone in both African and English words. Examples of minimal pairs of words distinguished by tone patterns are:
Orthography
Krio uses the
Latin script
The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is a writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae in Magna Graecia. The Gree ...
but without
Qq and
Xx and with three additional letters from the
African reference alphabet
The African Reference Alphabet is a largely defunct continent-wide guideline for the creation of Latin alphabets for African languages. Two variants of the initial proposal (one in English and a second in French) were made at a 1978 UNESCO-organi ...
,
Ɛɛ (open E),
Ŋŋ (eng), and
Ɔɔ (open O). Three
tones can be distinguished in Krio and are sometimes marked with
grave
A grave is a location where a cadaver, dead body (typically that of a human, although sometimes that of an animal) is burial, buried or interred after a funeral. Graves are usually located in special areas set aside for the purpose of buria ...
(à),
acute (á), and
circumflex
The circumflex () is a diacritic in the Latin and Greek scripts that is also used in the written forms of many languages and in various romanization and transcription schemes. It received its English name from "bent around"a translation of ...
(â) accents over the vowels for low, high, and falling tones respectively but these accents are not employed in normal usage.
The complete alphabet with
digraphs:
Grammar
The particle is appended after a noun to mark the plural, e.g. ('woman'):
Verbs
Verbs do not conjugate according to person or number, but reflect their tense. Tense, aspect and mood are marked by one or more tense or aspect markers. The tense markers are 'bin' for the past tense and 'go' for the future, the absence of either shows the present tense. Aspect is shown by (from English 'done') for perfective and (cf. English 'there', Yoruba , ) for imperfective. Infinitive is marked by (from English 'for') and conditional by a combination of and . Tendency is marked by and /.
The verbal paradigm is as follows:
The
hortative is marked by (from English 'let'), e.g. ('let's go'), ('let's talk') and the
optative by (from English 'make'), e.g. ('let your kingdom come'), ('let your will be done').
Interrogatives
The following
interrogatives
An interrogative word or question word is a function word used to ask a question, such as ''what, which'', ''when'', ''where'', '' who, whom, whose'', ''why'', ''whether'' and ''how''. They are sometimes called wh-words, because in English most ...
can be used:
In addition, like many other creoles, a question can be asked simply by intonation.
E.g. ('are you going?') vs. ('you are going'). Additionally the question particles and / can be used at the start or end of the phrase respectively.
Pronouns
There is no distinction between masculine and feminine in any person and, unlike Standard English, there is a second person plural form. However, there are the hints of
nominative
In grammar, the nominative case ( abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case, or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb, or (in Latin and formal variants of E ...
,
accusative
In grammar, the accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to receive the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: "me", "him", "her", " ...
and
genitive
In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can ...
cases.
Vocabulary
Below are some common words in Krio, showing words from various origins:
Below are some sample sentences in Krio:
Below is a sample of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the Human rights, rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN Drafting of the Universal D ...
in Krio:
Films
Krio is used (incorrectly) early in the 2006 film ''
Blood Diamond
Blood diamonds (also called conflict diamonds, brown diamonds, hot diamonds, or red diamonds) are diamonds mined in a war zone and sold to finance an insurgency, an invading army's war efforts, terrorism, or a warlord's activity. The term is u ...
'' between Danny Archer (played by
Leonardo DiCaprio
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio (; ; born November 11, 1974) is an American actor and film producer. Known for Leonardo DiCaprio filmography, his work in biographical and period films, he is the recipient of List of awards and nominations received ...
) and a character named Commander Zero.
It can be heard in the music video for "
Diamonds from Sierra Leone", a song by American rapper Kanye West.
In 2007, work was completed on an unsanctioned, dubbed Krio version of
Franco Zeffirelli's 1977 film ''
Jesus of Nazareth
Jesus ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the central figure of Christianity, the world's largest religi ...
''. The dubs were recorded by a team of over 14 native Krio speakers, over a period of 9 months in the Lungi region of Sierra Leone. The film aired on ABC-TV and a limited run of 300 copies were produced, which were mostly sold in
Lungi
The lungi is a clothing similar to the sarong that originated in the Indian subcontinent. The lungi, which usually multicoloured, is a men's skirt usually tied around the lower waist below the navel. It can be worn as casual wear and night wear. ...
and Freetown.
Krio is heard in the English language documentary ''
War Don Don''. The film's title is in Krio.
The first feature-length documentary entirely spoken in Krio is
Boris Gerrets' film ''Shado’man'' (2014). It was shot in Freetown at night with a group of homeless disabled people. The film premiered at the
IDFA documentary festival in Amsterdam and was seen in festivals around the world including
FESPACO, the biannual Pan-African film festival in
Ouagadougou
Ouagadougou or Wagadugu (, , , ) is the capital city of Burkina Faso, and the administrative, communications, cultural and economic centre of the nation. It is also the List of cities in Burkina Faso#Largest cities, country's largest city, wi ...
.
Fiction
Peter Grant, the protagonist of
Ben Aaronovitch's ''
Rivers of London'' series, is the London-born son of an immigrant from Sierra Leone. While speaking English with other characters, he speaks Krio with his mother. Aaronovitch includes some such conversations in his text, leaving the reader to puzzle out what was said.
See also
*
Sierra Leonean English
*
Ian Hancock
References
Further reading
*
*
External links
Krio Corpus Projectat
Umeå University,
Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...
.
Krio proverbs(Archived PDF version
Krio proverbsPanAfrican L10n page on Krio (& Pidgin)Yakpo, Kofi (2009) "A Grammar of Pichi", 692 pp. This link opens a pdf of a comprehensive linguistic description of Pichi (Fernando Po Creole English), a language closely related to Krio, by the linguist Kofi Yakpo (University of Nijmegen)
Krio Language Manual, Peace Corps - Sierra Leone
{{DEFAULTSORT:Krio Language
English-based pidgins and creoles of Africa
Languages of Sierra Leone
Language
Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...
Languages of the African diaspora