French-based creole languages

A French creole, or French-based creole language, is a creole language (contact language with native speakers) for which French is the lexifier. Most often this lexifier is not modern French but rather a 17th-century koiné of French from Paris, the French Atlantic harbours, and the nascent French colonies. French-based creole languages are spoken by millions of people worldwide, primarily in the Americas and in the Indian Ocean. This article also contains information on French pidgin languages, contact languages that lack native speakers.

These contact languages are not to be confused with contemporary (non-creole) French language varieties spoken overseas in, for example, Canada (mostly in Quebec and the Maritime Provinces), the Canadian Prairie provinces, Louisiana, northern New England (Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont), and Saint-Barthélemy (leeward portion of the island).

Classification

Americas

• Varieties with progressive aspect marker ape^[1]
  • Haitian Creole or Kreyòl ayisyen, a language spoken primarily in Haiti: the largest French-derived language in the world, with a total of 12 million fluent speakers. It is also the most-spoken creole language in the world. French is its superstrate language, some indigenous Amerindian languages providing substrate input. Some words also derive from English and from Spanish.
  • Louisiana Creole (Kréyol la Lwizyàn, locally called Kourí-Viní and Creole), the Louisiana creole language.
• Varieties with progressive aspect marker ka^[2]
  • Antillean Creole is a language spoken primarily in the francophone (and some of the anglophone) Lesser Antilles, such as Martinique, Guadeloupe, Îles des Saintes, Dominica, St. Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago and many other smaller islands. Although all of the creoles spoken on these islands are considered to be the same language, there are noticeable differences between the dialects of each island. Notably, the Creole spoken in the Eastern (windward) part of the island Saint-Barthélemy is spoken exclusively by a white population of European descent, imported into the island from Saint Kitts in 1648.
    • Dominican Creole French, Grenadian Creole French, Saint Lucian Creole French
  • French Guiana Creole or French Guianese Creole is a language spoken in French Guiana, and to a lesser degree in Suriname and Guyana. It is closely related to Antillean Creole, but there are some noteworthy differences between the two.
  • Karipúna, spoken in Brazil, mostly in Uaçá, the state of Amapá. It was developed by Amerindians in the Uaçá, with possible influences from immigrants from neighboring French Guiana and French territories of the Caribbean and with a recent lexical adstratum from Portuguese.
  • Lanc-Patuá, spoken more widely in the state of Amapá, is a variety of the former, possibly the same language.

Indian Ocean

• Varieties with progressive aspect marker ape^[1] – subsumed under a common classification as Bourbonnais Creoles
  • Mauritian Creole, spoken as the mother tongue (locally Kreol)
  • Agalega Creole, spoken in Agaléga Islands
  • Chagossian Creole, spoken by the former population of the Chagos archipelago
  • Réunion Creole, spoken in Réunion
  • Rodriguan Creole, spoken on the island of Rodrigues
  • Seychellois Creole, spoken everywhere in the Seychelles and locally known as Kreol seselwa. It is the mother tongue and shares official status with English and French.

Pacific

• Tayo, spoken in New Caledonia

Africa

• Petit Mauresque or Little Moorish was spoken in North Africa
• Français Tirailleur Pidgin language ^[3] spoken in West Africa by soldiers in the French Colonial Army, approximately 1850–1960.
• Camfranglais in Cameroon

Asia

• Tây Bồi, Pidgin language spoken in former French Colonies in Indochina, primarily Vietnam

See also

• Chiac
• Michif
• Chinook Jargon
• Joual

Notes

1. with variants ap and pe, from the koiné French progressive aspect marker àprè <après> Henri Wittmann. 1995, "Grammaire comparée des variétés coloniales du français populaire de Paris du 17^e siècle et origines du français québécois", in Fournier, Robert & Wittmann, Henri, Le français des Amériques, Trois-Rivières: Presses universitaires de Trois-Rivières, pp. 281-334.
2. from the Karipúna substratum (Henri Wittmann. 1995, "Grammaire comparée des variétés coloniales du français populaire de Paris du 17^e siècle et origines du français québécois", in Fournier, Robert & Wittmann, Henri, Le français des Amériques, Trois-Rivières: Presses universitaires de Trois-Rivières, pp. 281-334.
3. Holm, J.A. (1989). Pidgins and Creoles: Volume 2, Reference Survey. Cambridge University Press. p. 357. ISBN 9780521359405. Retrieved 2015-03-02.