Guinea-Bissau Creole

lingua franca of Guinea Bissau

Guinea-Bissau Creole, also known as Kiriol, is a Creole language. Its lexicon derives mostly from Portuguese. It is spoken in Guinea-Bissau, Senegal and The Gambia. Its native speakers also call it guinensi, kriyol, or portuguis.

Guinea-Bissau Creole
Kiriol, Crioulo
guinensi, kriyol, kiriol, purtuguis 'kriolo'
Native toGuinea-Bissau, Senegal, The Gambia
Native speakers
1.0 million[1] (2006–2007)[2]
L2 speakers: 600,000 in Guinea-Bissau (no date)[3]
Portuguese Creole
  • Afro-Portuguese Creole
    • Upper Guinea Creole
      • Guinea-Bissau Creole
Language codes
ISO 639-3pov
Glottologuppe1455
Linguasphere51-AAC-ab

Guinea-Bissau Creole is spoken as a native language by approximately 15% (190,000) of Bissau-Guineans. It is spoken as a second language by approximately 50% (as of some time before 1992).

A variant of Guinea-Bissau Creole called Portuguis Creole or Casamance Creole is also spoken in southern Senegal. It is mainly in the region of Casamance, a former Portuguese colony. Creole is the majority language of the inhabitants of the Casamance region. It is used as a language of commerce.

Standard Portuguese is the official language of Guinea-Bissau, but Guinea-Bissau Creole is the language of trade, informal literature and entertainment. It is not used in news media, parliament, public services or educational programming.

References

change
  1. The remainder of the population listed in Ethnologue 18 appears to be Cape Verdean Creole, as per Ethnologue 12.
  2. Guinea-Bissau Creole at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  3. Upper Guinea Crioulo at Ethnologue (12th ed., 1992).