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materials © Peter L. Patrick. May
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Pidgins & Creoles as
National
or Official Languages
Prof. Peter L. Patrick
Department of
Language and Linguistics
University of Essex
This webpage was stimulated by a brief discussion on the
Creole Talk e-list (see credits below for contributors).
Nations/states currently discussed below include:
Cabo
Verde ☻ Central African Republic ☻ Haiti/Ayiti
☻ Mauritius ☻ Papua New Guinea ☻ Sierra Leone ☻ Sao Tomé/Principé
☻ Seychelles ☻ Vanuatu
Naturally, I hope to include more
Creole nations here in the near future! both those I
have missed, and those which are advancing their heritage language to national
and/or official status. I have used a definition of “official” which is fairly
strict, i.e. mention in the Constitution or in legislation specifically aimed
at establishing and assigning language domains (by this standard, English is
not the official language of the USA or UK), but a looser definition of
national, e.g. a language in which major social institutions or functions are
often carried out, such as mass media, primary education, government debate,
etc. (By this standard Haitian Creole is “official” – but is it “national”?!)
The entries are meant to be short, but I am open to receiving further
information and new entries (see below), and grateful to those who have
contacted me already.
§
Cabo
Verde 
(“Cape
Verde”). Group of islands c500km W of
Senegal, first colonized 1460 by Portugal,
independent 1975. Kabuverdianu (also
“Crioulo”) is not yet an official language, as Portuguese is, but holds the
status of “national language”. Most schooling, official media, and state
documents are in Portuguese. Officialization of Cape
Verdean
is under government consideration as of 2005; there has been an official
orthography since 1998. Ancestors include Portuguese and West African languages
of the West Atlantic (Wolof, Fula) and Mande
(Malinké, Bambara, Djula) families. The island has over 400,000 people, most
speaking Kabuverdianu natively,
but a larger population overseas.
§
Central
African Republic
This land-locked nation in the center of
Africa, between the Nile, Zaire and Benue rivers, has a population of about 3.8
million speaking 68 languages, mostly Ubangi varieties. Sango, a contact language based on
Ngbandi, had about 350,000 native speakers in the 1988 census, making it
perhaps the most widely-spoken native language; it is used as a second language
by almost the entire population, and by some people in neighboring nations (so,
c.5 million). It is a national language, and well established; French is the
official language. Sango is used in radio, television, community school
instruction, and some print (eg the Bible).
§
Ayiti/Haiti 
Western third of the island
of Hispaniola,
the 2nd largest island in the Caribbean.
Colonized by the Spanish (Columbus,
1492). Kreyòl,
as it is officially known (Kreyòl Ayisyen,
or “Haitian Creole”), is an official
language along with French, established in Article 5 of the 1987 Constitution.
Most official documents, including birth certificates, are written exclusively
in French; the vast majority of Haitians are monolingual in Kreyòl. Nearly 8 million
speakers. Ancestors include French and West African languages, primarily Kwa
and especially Gbe.
§
Mauritius 
Island
in the Indian Ocean,
E of Madagascar.
First colonized by Portugal
(1505), then the Netherlands,
France,
Britain;
independent 1968. Morisyen
(“Mauritius Creole French”) is not an official language, (though very widely
used – est. over 600,000 speakers), but then the Constitution does not
recognize one. English is used in official life, French is largely spoken and
written; but even Tamil and Urdu have more native speakers. So does Bhojpuri
(Hindi), the other major language at 330,000. Two-thirds of the population have
origins in the Indian subcontinent, but earlier ancestors included the French,
Malagasy-speakers from Madagascar,
plus a few hundred W Africans speaking Fon-Gbe, Bambara and Wolof.
§
Papua New Guinea 
Eastern half of the island of New Guinea in the Pacific, just N of Australia. The world’s 2nd largest
island, and the most linguistically diverse, with 822 languages (12% of the world’s
stock, 63% of the entire Pacific’s). Claimed by various European nations,
colonized by Germany and Britain, later by Australia. Independent 1975. The Constitution designates 3 official languages: Tok Pisin, Hiri Motu, and English. Tok Pisin is a pidgin/creole with ancestry
from English, Chinese Pidgin English, and Austronesian languages such as Tolai.
It is the most widely-used variety of Melanesian Pidgin English, with around
100,000 native speakers and up to 2 million second-language speakers. Hiri Motu
is a pidgin derived from Motu (an Austronesian language with which it is
unintelligible), and has few native speakers but possibly 100,000
second-language users. All indigenous languages within PNG are designated
“national” by the Constitution, and allowed to be used in local education.
§
Sao Tome & Principe 
Africa’s smallest country - two islands in the Gulf of Guinea, 240km W of Gabon. Colonized 1485 by Portugal with Africans from Benin and Angola; independent 1975. Saotomense
is a national language, spoken by 70-100,000 people, alongside Principense, another Portuguese-related
creole, spoken only by 1,500 (mostly on Principe) and possibly
moribund, and a third, Angolar,
spoken by over 5,000. Angolar was creolized by Kimbundu-speaking Maroons who
remained separate from the Forro (‘freedmen’) who founded Saotomense, with a
heritage of Kwa and Kongo languages. Portuguese is an official language.
§
Seychelles 
Archipelago of c 100 islands in the Indian Ocean, 1000km NE of
Madagascar and 1600km E of Mombasa. Visited by the Arabs, and the East India
Co. in 1609, when uninhabited, colonized by the French in 1768 and the British
in 1794; independent 1976. 95% of the 76,000 population speak Seselwa (“Seychellois”), a
French-related Creole; French and English are also official alongside it, but
with few native speakers. Seselwa is used in primary education since 1982, also
in newspapers and radio. Ancestors came from France, Mauritius and Reunion (but perhaps not early enough to influence the Creole), as well as Mozambique and W Africa. No indentured laborers were imported from India, so there is little influence from Indic or Dravidian languages.
§
Sierra Leone 
is a nation on the W African Coast, with a
population of nearly 6 million. Krio,
an English-related urban Creole, was established as a national language – alongside indigenous
Temne, Mende and Limba – by act of parliament in 1995. Like its neighbor Liberia, Sierra
Leone was the
object of slave resettlement schemes from the New World between 1787 and
1800 - about 1,500 N American and 500 Jamaican Maroons – who may have been
influential on Krio. European contact began about 1460 with the Portuguese, and
English privateers began raiding about 1663; the British took over in 1808
independence in 1961. Krio is used on
the radio and in limited print functions, and as a school subject, and is
spoken by about 500,000 people natively (mostly urban residents of Freetown), and by at least 4 million as a second language. English is the
official language and the language of school instruction.
§
Ripablik Blong Vanuatu 
(also known simply as Vanuatu).* Archipelago of 83 islands near Fiji in the Pacific. The Melanesian population arrived 3,500 years ago.
Europeans sighted (de Queiroz, 1606) and charted it (Cook, 1774), and whalers
arrived from the 1830s, and the French and British divided it as the New Hebrides until
independence in 1980. Bislama is
another variety of Melanesian Pidgin English, spoken by a majority of the
population, but by only few as a first language. It developed when men were
taken away into plantation slavery on Fiji, Samoa and Queensland in the 1860s. Bislama was designated by the Constitution of Vanuatu
(1980) as the “national language”. English, French and Bislama are “official
languages”; Bislama is used in parliament, mass media and religion, but English
and French as languages of instruction. Many other Melanesian languages are
also used (c.105, principally Ambae, Ambrym, Apma, Efate, Hano, Lenakel, Paama & Tanna) by the population, which totals
c.140-180,000. * [As far as I know, this makes RB Vanuatu the only country to
explicitly use Creole syntax in its official name!]
§
Thanks to those who provided
information for this page, including: Louis Calvet, Ross Clark, Hildo Honorio
do Couto, John Holm, Sheikh Kamarah, Marilyn Mason, Mikael Parkvall, Norval
Smith, Kenneth Sumbuk, Dominika Swolkien de Sousa, Emanuel Vedrine and the
Creole Talk list (webpage). To correct or add
information, please email (patrickp) at (essex.ac.uk) or contact me.
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Last updated 07 February
2005