English-based creole languages

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 creole's lexicon. Most English creoles were formed in British colonies, following the great expansion of British naval military power and trade in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. The main categories of English-based creoles are Atlantic (the Americas and Africa) and Pacific (Asia and Oceania).

Over 76.5 million people globally are estimated to speak an English-based creole. Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Ghana and Jamaica have the largest concentrations of Creole speakers.

Origin

It is disputed to what extent the various English-based creoles of the world share a common origin. The monogenesis hypothesis posits that a single language, commonly called proto–Pidgin English, spoken along the West African coast in the early sixteenth century, was ancestral to most or all of the Atlantic creoles (the English creoles of both West Africa and the Americas).

Table of creole languages

Name Spoken in Number of speakers Notes

Atlantic

Western Caribbean

Bahamian Creole Bahamas 328,000 (2018)
Turks and Caicos Creole English Turks and Caicos 34,400 (2019)
Bay Islands English Honduras 22,500 (2001)
Jamaican Patois Jamaica 3,043,280 (2001)
Belizean Creole Belize 170,000 (2014)
Miskito Coast Creole Nicaragua 18,400 (2009) Dialect: Rama Cay Creole
Limonese Creole Costa Rica 55,100 (2013) Dialect of Jamaican Patois
Bocas del Toro Creole Panama 268,000 (2000)
San Andrés–Providencia Creole Colombia 12,000 (1981)

Eastern Caribbean

Virgin Islands Creole
89,700 (2019)
Anguillan Creole Anguilla 11,500 (2001) Dialect of Antiguan and Barbudan Creole
Barbudan Creole Antigua and Barbuda 1,400 (2011)
North Antiguan Creole 48,000 (2011)
South Antiguan Creole 6,800 (2011)
Saint Kitts Creole Saint Kitts and Nevis 51,000 (2015)
Montserrat Creole Montserrat 5,130 (2020)
Kokoy Dominica unknown, growing
Vincentian Creole Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 108,000 (2016)
Grenadian Creole Grenada 107,000 (2020)
Tobagonian Creole Trinidad and Tobago 300,000 (2011)
Trinidadian Creole 1,000,000 (2011)
Bajan Dialect Barbados 257,000 (2018)
Guyanese Creole Guyana 715,200 (2021)
Sranan Tongo Suriname 669,600 (2016–2018) Including 150,000 L2 users
Saramaccan 34,500 (2018)
Ndyuka 67,800 (2018) Dialects: Aluku, Paramaccan
Kwinti 250 (2018)

Southern-Caribbean

Venezuelan English Creole Venezuela unknown, likely endangered (2018)
San Nicolaas English Aruba 15,000 (estimation) (2020) Spoken in San Nicolaas, Aruba

North America

Gullah United States 300 (2023) Ethnic population: 250,000
Afro-Seminole Creole
200 (1990) Dialect of the Gullah language

West Africa

Krio / Sierra Leonean Criole Sierra Leone 7,800,000 (2021) Including 6,900,000 L2 speakers
Kreyol/Kolokwa Liberia 5,113,000 (2015/2021) Including 5,000,000 L2 speakers
Kru English / Ghanaian Pidgin Ghana 5,002,000 (2011/2013) Including 5,000,000 L2 speakers
Naijá / Nigerian Pidgin Nigeria 120,650,000 (2020) Including 116,000,000 L2 users
Wes Cos / Kamtok / Cameroonian Pidgin Cameroon 12,000,000 (2017)
Pichinglis / Equatorial Guinean Pidgin Equatorial Guinea 76,000 (2011) Including 70,000 L2 users

Pacific

Hawaiian Pidgin Hawaii, United States 600,000 (2015) Including 400,000 L2 users
Ngatikese Creole Micronesia 700 (1983)
Tok Pisin Papua New Guinea 4,125,740 Including 4,000,000 L2 users (2001)
Pijin Solomon Islands 564,000 (2012–2019) 530,000 L2 users (1999)
Bislama Vanuatu 12,570 (2011)
Pitcairn-Norfolk
1,786 Almost no L2 users. Has been classified as an Atlantic Creole based on internal structure.
Australian Kriol Australia 17,160 (1991/2021) Including 10,000 L2 users
Torres Strait Creole 6,170 (2016)
Bonin English Japan Bonin Islands, Japan Possibly 1,000–2000 (2004)[citation needed]

Marginal

Other

Not strictly creoles, but sometimes called thus:

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ According to Encyclopedia Britannica, Black Seminoles have also been known as Seminole Maroons or Seminole Freedmen and were a group of free blacks and runaway slaves who joined with a group of Native Americans in Florida after the Spanish abolished slavery there in 1793.
  2. ↑ Although Hawaii is part of the United States, Hawaiian Pidgin is mostly considered as a Pacific creole language rather than Atlantic, this is further mentioned in John Holm's "An Introduction to Pidgins and Creoles". Therefore, it does not have to follow its political boundaries on being a U.S. state.

References

  1. ↑ Velupillai, Viveka (2015). Pidgins, Creoles and Mixed Languages. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. p. 519. ISBN 978-90-272-5272-2.
  2. ↑ Hancock, I. F. (1969). "A provisional comparison of the English-based Atlantic creoles". African Language Review. 8: 7–72.
  3. ↑ Gilman, Charles (1978). "A Comparison of Jamaican Creole and Cameroon Pidgin English". English Studies. 59: 57–65. doi:10.1080/00138387808597871.
  4. ↑ Eberhard, David M.; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D., eds. (2022). Ethnologue: Languages of the World (25th ed.). Dallas, Texas: SIL International.
  5. ↑ "Virgin Islands English Creole". Ethnologue. Retrieved 27 March 2023.
  6. ↑ Villanueva Feliciano, Orville Omar. 2009. A Contrastive analysis of English Influences on the Lexicon of Puerto Rican Spanish in Puerto Rico and St. Croix
  7. ↑ "Virgin Islands Creole English". Find a Bible. Retrieved 11 February 2023.
  8. ↑ Staff Consortium. "What Does the USVI and Puerto Rico Have in Common? A Summary of a Stimulating Discussion on Self-Determination in the Virgin Islands". The Virgin Islands Consortium. Retrieved 10 July 2022.
  9. ↑ Sprawe, Gilbert A. "About Man Betta Man, Fission and Fusion, and Creole, Calypso and Cultural Survival in the Virgin Islands" (PDF). Retrieved 6 April 2023.
  10. ↑
  11. ↑ "Dominica fights to save Creole forged by slaves in Caribbean". Associated Press. 2021-07-02. Retrieved 2025-07-13.
  12. ↑ "Afro-Seminole Creole". Ethnologue. Retrieved 11 February 2023.
  13. ↑ "Creoles in Texas – 'The Afro-Seminoles'." Kreol Magazine. March 28, 2014. Accessed April 11, 2018.
  14. ↑ Kuiper, Kathleen. "Black Seminoles." In: Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed April 13, 2018.
  15. ↑ "Krio". Ethnologue.
  16. ↑ "Koloqua Liberian English". Ethnologue.
  17. ↑ "Ethnologue (2026) - Ghanaian Pidgin English".
  18. ↑ Michaelis, Susanne; Philippe Maurer; Martin Haspelmath; Magnus Huber, eds. (2013). The atlas of Pidgin and Creole language structures. [Oxford], United Kingdom: APiCS Consortium. ISBN 978-0-19-969139-5. OCLC 839396764.
  19. ↑ "Naijá Nigerian Pidgin". Ethnologue.
  20. ↑ "Cameroon Pidgin". Ethnologue.
  21. ↑ "Equatorial Guinean Pidgin". Ethnologue.
  22. ↑ Holm, John A. (2000). An introduction to pidgin and creoles. Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press. p. 95. ISBN 9780521584609.
  23. ↑ Sasaoka, Kyle (2019). "Toward a writing system for Hawai'i Creole". ScholarSpace.
  24. ↑ Velupillai, Viveka (2013). Hawai'i Creole. pp. 252–261. ISBN 978-0-19-969140-1. {{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help)
  25. ↑ "Hawai'i Pidgin". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2018-06-25.
  26. ↑ Velupillai, Viveka (2013), "Hawai'i Creole structure dataset", Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures Online, Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, retrieved 2021-08-20
  27. ↑
  28. ↑ Avram, Andrei (2003). "Pitkern and Norfolk revisited". English Today. 19 (1): 44–49. doi:10.1017/S0266078403003092. S2CID 144835575.
  29. ↑ Australian Bureau of Statistics (2021). "Cultural diversity: Census". Archived from the original on 6 October 2025. Retrieved 13 October 2022.
  30. ↑ "Kriol". Ethnologue.

Further reading