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85-602: The Sierra Leone Creole people ( Krio : Krio pipul ) 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 between 1787 and about 1885. The colony was established by the British , supported by abolitionists , under the Sierra Leone Company as

170-664: A Creole community usually converted to Christianity, the religion shared by nearly all Creoles. In 1787, the British helped 400 freed slaves, primarily African Americans freed during the American Revolutionary War who had been evacuated to London, and Afro-Caribbeans and Africans from London, to relocate to Sierra Leone to settle in what they called the "Province of Freedom." Some of these early settlers had been freed earlier and worked as servants in London. Most of

255-768: A Creole ethnicity . The Americo-Liberians and Sierra Leone Creoles are the only recognised ethnic group of African-American, Liberated African, and Afro-Caribbean descent in West Africa. Thoroughly westernized in their manners, the Creoles as a class developed close relationships with the British colonial administration; they became educated in British institutions and advanced to prominent leadership positions in colonial Sierra Leone and British West Africa . Partly due to this history, many Sierra Leone Creoles have first names and/or surnames that are anglicized or British in origin. The Creoles are overwhelmingly Christian and

340-542: A Recipe for Conviviality (2020) Today, Creole communities have more in common with each other than they have with any African ethnic groups . On the islands of Africa, creole languages predominate while on the mainland, creole languages are lingua franca or national languages in Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Liberia , and South Africa. In island communities, Creoles are found in many occupations ranging from agricultural workers to members of society's elite . In

425-515: A main language for communication purposes in the country as a whole. One theory suggests the early roots of Krio go back to the Atlantic slave trade era in the 17th and 18th centuries when an English-based " pidgin " 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

510-826: A newspaper proprietor and Creoles such as Macormack Easmon , Edna Elliott-Horton , and George T.O. Robinson , the founder of the Krio Descendants Union . Although Creoles are primarily Protestant , there are a small number of Creole Catholics who attend Catholic churches such as St. Anthony's Church in Brookfields and the Sacred Heart Cathedral in Freetown. Prominent Creole Catholics include Dr Monty Jones , Bertha Conton and Florence Dillsworth and, in previous generations, James C.E. Parkes . The official language of Sierra Leone

595-558: A place for freedmen . The settlers called their new settlement Freetown . Today, the Sierra Leone Creoles are 1.2 percent of the population of Sierra Leone. The Creoles of Sierra Leone have varying degrees of European ancestry , similar to their Americo-Liberian neighbours and sister ethnic group in Liberia . In Sierra Leone, some of the settlers intermarried with English colonial residents and other Europeans. Through

680-458: A question can be asked simply by intonation. E.g. Yu de go? : 'Are you going' vs yu de go : 'you are going.' Additionally the question particles 'ènti' and 'nòoso' can be used at the start or end of the phrase respectively. 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 , accusative and genitive cases. Krio uses

765-520: A socio-economic environment and amidst a high general competence in the official language Spanish, code-mixing between Pichi and Spanish, rather than being exceptional, is consciously and confidently articulated in daily life. Spanish words are in bold in the following Pichi sentences. Afta then ùna 2PL bay buy dì DEF bloques bricks dɛ̀n PL tumara. tomorrow Afta ùna bay dì bloques dɛ̀n tumara. then 2PL buy DEF bricks PL tomorrow 'Then buy [plural]

850-593: A vibrant African-European culture and economy along the West African seaboard. Mutual intelligibility within the African branch is quite high. However, an impediment to fluid communication between speakers of Pichi and its sister languages is the divergent path of development of Pichi since 1857. In that year, Spain began to actively enforce colonial rule in Equatorial Guinea . From then onwards, Pichi

935-819: 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. 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

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1020-418: Is English. In addition to English, the Sierra Leone Creoles also speak a distinctive creole language named after their ethnic group called Creole or Krio . Krio was strongly influenced by British English , Gullah , African American Vernacular English , Jamaican Creole , Akan , Igbo and Yoruba . Krio language The Krio language is an offshoot of the languages and variations of English brought by

1105-401: 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

1190-532: Is a member of the African branch of the family of Atlantic English-lexicon Creoles. It descends directly from Krio , the English-lexicon Creole that rose to become the language of the Creole community of Freetown, Sierra Leone in the late 18th century. Throughout the better part of the 19th century, this community, which had emerged from the horrors of slavery and the slave trade, began to forge

1275-475: Is a widespread competence in different registers of Spanish by Pichi speakers in Malabo. In Malabo, the acquisition of Spanish begins in early childhood, even for many working-class Equatoguineans with little or no school education. Equally, the burgeoning oil economy of Equatorial Guinea has led to increased urbanisation, extending multi-ethnic social networks and the spread of Pichi as a native language. In such

1360-628: 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 while the majority of the African words in Krio come from the Akan , Yoruba and Igbo . As an English-based creole language, the Sierra Leone Krio

1445-699: Is another Creole, the Portuguese-lexicon Creole Fá d'Ambô , spoken by the people of the island of Annobón . Fa d’Ambô shares historical and linguistic ties with the other Portuguese-lexicon Creoles of the Gulf of Guinea, namely Lungwa Santome and Angolar in São Tomé Island and Lun'gwiye in Principe Island . Also the influence of Pichi on Fa d’Ambô. The other languages traditionally spoken in Equatorial Guinea belong to

1530-637: Is critical when evaluating and monitoring progress in communication and language acquisition. Below are some sample words in Krio: Below are some sample sentences in Krio: Below is a sample of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Krio: Krio is used (incorrectly) early in the 2006 film Blood Diamond between Danny Archer (played by Leonardo DiCaprio ) and a character named Commander Zero. It can also be heard in

1615-461: Is distinct from a pidgin as it is a language in its own right, with fixed grammatical structures and rules. Krio also draws from other European languages , like Portuguese and French , e.g. the Krio word gentri / gentree , which means wealth or to acquire wealth, is derived from the Old French word ' gentry ', and the Krio word pikin , which means 'child', indirectly comes from

1700-435: Is good reason to assume that Pichi is today the second most widely spoken African language of the country behind Fang , closely followed by Bubi . It is safe to assume that at least 100,000 people of the country's population of around one million use Pichi regularly as a primary or secondary language. Next to Fang, Pichi and Bubi, over ten other African languages are spoken by the peoples of Equatorial Guinea. One of these

1785-576: Is spoken as a lingua franca throughout Bioko. It is also spoken by a sizable community of people originating from Bioko in Bata , the largest town on the continental part of the country. Pichi is believed to have derived from the Krio language , which first arrived in Bioko, the former Fernando Po, with African settlers from Freetown, Sierra Leone in 1827 (Fyfe 1962: 165). No official figures exist, but there

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1870-860: The 2nd and 4th West India Regiments were settled in Freetown and in suburbs around it in 1819. Barbadian rebels who participated in the Bussa Rebellion were transported to colonial Freetown in 1816 and included families such as the Priddy family . Thirty-eight African Americans (nine families) immigrated to Freetown under the auspices of African-American ship owner Paul Cuffe , of Boston . These Black Americans included Perry Lockes and Prince Saunders from Boston; Abraham Thompson and Peter Williams Jr. from New York City; and Edward Jones from Charleston, South Carolina . Americo-Liberian merchants and traders also settled in colonial Freetown throughout

1955-403: The American Revolutionary War , many on promises of freedom from enslavement . On the voyage between Plymouth and Sierra Leone, 96 passengers died. However, enough survived to establish and build a colony. Seventy white women accompanied the men to Sierra Leone. Anna Falconbridge portrayed these white women as prostitutes from Deptford Prison, but they were most likely wives and girlfriends of

2040-563: The Bantu branch of the Niger–Congo family. In the literature, Pichi is known under the names Fernando Po Creole English, Fernando Po Krio, Fernandino Creole English, Pidgin (English), Broken English, and Pichinglis. While many older speakers refer to the language as Krio or Pidgin, most present-day speakers refer to it as Pichinglis, Pichin with a nasalised final vowel or Pichi tout court. The lexical similarity between Pichi and English and

2125-539: The Caribbean , the term broadly refers to all the people, whatever their class or ancestry — African, East Asian, European, Indian — who are part of the culture of the Caribbean. In Trinidad , the term Creole is used to designate all Trinidadians except those of Asian origin. In French Guiana the term refers to anyone, regardless of skin colour, who has adopted a European way of life, and in neighbouring Suriname ,

2210-775: The Farquhar family and their descendants such as the Stuart family and Conton family who settled in Sierra Leone from Barbados , the Bahamas , and Bermuda between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The last major group of immigrants to the colony was the Liberated Africans or "Recaptives". Held on slave ships for sale in the western hemisphere, they were liberated by the Royal Navy , which, with

2295-657: The French créole , which in turn came from Portuguese crioulo , a diminutive of cria , meaning a person raised in one's house. Cria derives from criar , meaning "to raise or bring up", itself derived from the Latin creare , meaning "to make, bring forth, produce, beget"; — itself the source of the English word "create". The word creole has several cognates in other languages, such as créole , creolo , criol , criollo , crioulo , kreol , kreyol , krio , kriol , kriolu , and kriyoyo . In Louisiana ,

2380-523: The French-based creoles of the Caribbean. Krio contains seven monophthongs in its inventory of vowels , 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 . The nasal consonant is deleted and the vowel is nasalized. Krio has three diphthongs : /ai/, /au/, and /ɔi/. There are 24 phonemes in the consonant inventory of Krio. Consonant cluster reduction

2465-594: The Gold Coast likewise settled in Freetown and eventually coalesced into the Sierra Leone Creole identity. In the 21st century, the majority of Creoles in Sierra Leone continue to reside in Freetown and along the surrounding Western Area peninsula where their language and culture have a disproportionate influence relative to their population. The Creole people acted as colonial administrators, traders and missionaries in other parts of West Africa during

2550-469: The Jamaican Maroons , some Creoles probably also have indigenous Amerindian Taíno ancestry. The mingling of newly freed black and racially-mixed Nova Scotians and Jamaican Maroons from the ' New World ' with Liberated Africans – such as the Akan , Bakongo , Ewe , Igbo and Yoruba – over several generations in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, led to the eventual formation of

2635-540: The Latin script but without Qq and Xx and with three additional letters from the African reference alphabet , Ɛɛ (open E), Ŋŋ (eng), and Ɔɔ (open O). Three tones can be distinguished in Krio and are sometimes marked with grave (à), acute (á), and circumflex (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 : Spontaneous language sample analysis

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2720-572: The Nova Scotian Settlers from North America , Maroons from Jamaica , and the numerous liberated African slaves who settled in Sierra Leone. All freed slaves—the Jamaican Maroons , African-Americans , 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

2805-635: The Portuguese word pequeno meaning 'small' and often used to mean children in Portuguese. In Sierra Leone , 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 . As of 2007, there were close to 350,000 individuals who spoke Krio as a primary language. Even more individuals were using it as

2890-507: The West Africa Squadron , enforced the abolition of the international slave trade after 1808. The Liberated Africans were multi-ethnic and were largely Akan , Aja , Ewe , Angolan , Wolof , Hausa , Yoruba , Igbo , Bambara , Nupe , and Fulani people who had been enslaved by illegal slave traders. The Liberated Africans also included Sherbro , Mende and Temne people who had been enslaved in territories neighbouring

2975-434: The Western Area peninsula of Sierra Leone. By the 1850s, they had already established Aberdeen , Bathurst , Charlotte , Dublin , Gloucester , Goderich , Grafton , Hastings , Kent , Kissy , Leicester , Murray Town , Regent , Ricketts , Sussex , Waterloo , Wellington , Wilberforce and York . Between the late 18th and early 20th centuries, immigrants from the Bahamas , Barbados , Bermuda , Liberia and

3060-510: The labial-velar plosives /kp/ and /gb/, as in: Krio is a tonal language and makes contrastive use of tone in both African and English words. Examples of minimal pairs of words distinguished by tone patterns are: The suffix "-dèm" is used to mark the plural, as well as the genitive plural e.g. "uman" ("woman"). 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

3145-471: The large cotton tree near George Street. As the Settlers gathered under the tree, their preachers held a thanksgiving service and the white minister, Rev. Patrick Gilbert preached a sermon. After the religious services, the settlement was officially established and was designated Freetown. The Settler men cleared the forest and shrub and built a new settlement on the overgrown site that had formerly contained

3230-553: The 1870s, when the Creole identity was beginning to form. The next arrivals were the Jamaican Maroons ; these maroons came specifically from Cudjoe's Town (Trelawny Town) , one of the five Maroon cities in Jamaica. The Maroons mainly descended from highly military skilled Ashanti slaves who had escaped plantations and, to a lesser extent, from Jamaican indigenous people. The Maroons numbered around 551, and they helped quell some of

3315-970: The 19th century, and as a result, there are also Creole communities in The Gambia , Nigeria , Cameroon , and Equatorial Guinea . Due to normal migration patterns, the Sierra Leone Civil War , and some discrimination at home, many Sierra Leone Creoles live abroad in the United States and the United Kingdom . In the United States, Creoles are mostly settled in Washington DC , Maryland , Virginia , Texas , New York , Georgia , California and North Carolina . The Creoles are Christians, whether nominal or in practice, at more than 98 percent. A large proportion of

3400-716: The African Americans were from South Carolina and the Sea Islands, of the Gullah culture; others were from states along the eastern seaboard up to New England. Some 1200 of these blacks emigrated to Sierra Leone from Halifax Harbour on 15 January 1792, arriving between 28 February and 9 March 1792. On 11 March 1792, the Nova Scotian Settlers disembarked from the 14 passenger ships that had carried them from Nova Scotia to Sierra Leone and marched toward

3485-529: The British colonial administration intervened to ensure the Recaptives became firmly rooted in Freetown society; they served in the army with the West India Regiment, and they were assigned as apprentices in the houses of Settlers and Maroons. Sometimes if a child's parents died, the young Recaptive would be adopted by a Settler or Maroon family. The two groups mixed and mingled in society. As

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3570-534: The Colony of Sierra Leone. The Liberated Africans, also called Recaptives, contributed greatly to the Creole culture. While the Settlers, Maroons, and transatlantic immigrants gave the Creoles their Christianity, some of their customs, and their Western influence, the Liberated Africans modified their customs to adopt those of the Nova Scotians and Europeans, yet kept some of their ethnic traditions. Initially

3655-676: The Creole people influenced other pidgins such as Cameroonian Pidgin English , Nigerian Pidgin English , and Pichinglis . As a result of their history, the Gambian Creole people , or Aku people of the Gambia , the Saro people of Nigeria, and the Krio Fernandinos of Equatorial Guinea , are sub-ethnic groups or partly descended from the Sierra Leone Creole people or their ancestors. The English word creole derives from

3740-590: 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 . During

3825-652: The Granville Town settlement. They had a profound influence on Creole culture; many of the Western attributes of Creole society were conveyed by the "Settlers", who continued what was familiar to them from their past lives. In Sierra Leone they were called the Nova Scotians or "Settlers" (the 1787 Settlers were called the Old Settlers). They founded the capital of Sierra Leone in 1792. The descendants of African Americans remained an identifiable ethnic group until

3910-614: The Jarretts, Smiths, Hortons, Coles, Porters, Jones, and the Morgans, settled in Maroon Town , Sierra Leone. Seventy percent of Maroons lived on five streets: Gloucester, George, Trelawney, Walpole, and Westmoreland street. The Jamaican Maroon settlement was west of Settler Town between Walpole street and King Tom. The Liberated African ancestors – principally of Akan , Bakongo , Ewe , Igbo and Yoruba origin – settled across

3995-474: The Recaptives began to trade and spread Christianity throughout West Africa, they began to dominate Freetown society. The Recaptives intermarried with the Settlers and Maroons, and the two groups became a fusion of African and Western societies. The ancestors of the Creoles founded the Colony of Sierra Leone and established the settlement of Freetown in 1792. They based the plan on what they were familiar with –

4080-577: The Sierra Leone colony believed that a new colony did not need black settlers from London. The directors decided to offer resettlement to African Americans from Nova Scotia, despite the failure of the last colony. These settlers were Black Loyalists, American slaves who had escaped to British lines and fought with them during the American Revolution, to earn freedom. The British government had transported more than 3,000 freedmen to Nova Scotia for resettlement, together with white Loyalists. Some of

4165-404: The adults had left Patriot owners and fought for the British in the Revolutionary War. The Crown had offered slaves freedom who left rebel masters, and thousands joined the British lines. The British resettled 3,000 of the African Americans in Nova Scotia, where many found the climate harsh and struggled with discrimination from white Nova Scotians. More than 1,200 volunteered to settle and establish

4250-440: The black settlers. Their colony was known as the "Province of Freedom" and their settlement was called "Granville Town"' after the English abolitionist Granville Sharp . The British negotiated for the land for the settlement with the local Temne chief, King Tom. However, before the ships sailed away from Sierra Leone, 50 white women had died, and about 250 remained of the original 440 who left Plymouth. Another 86 settlers died in

4335-526: The coastal areas of mainland Africa, Creoles acquired economic and political leverage due to their education, culture and close relationships with the colonial administration. They developed a strong sense of ethnic identity and formed their own political organisations. During the independence era of the mid-1900s, some Creoles supported colonial rule but many fought for independence and held positions of power afterwards. In most countries however, Creole political influence gradually gave way to ethnic groups from

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4420-426: The colonial and present-day official language of Equatorial Guinea. Spanish has left a deep imprint on the lexicon and grammar of Pichi. Code-mixing is an integral part of the linguistic system of Pichi. The pervasive influence of Spanish on Pichi is for one part, the consequence of language policy. Since colonial rule, Spanish has remained the sole medium of instruction at all levels of the educational system. There

4505-533: The country's population, it unites all the different ethnic groups , especially in their trade and interaction with each other. Krio is also the primary language of communication among Sierra Leoneans living abroad. The Sierra Leone Creoles settled across West Africa in the nineteenth century in communities such as Limbe ( Cameroon ); Conakry ( Guinea ); Banjul ( Gambia ); Lagos , Abeokuta , Calabar , Onisha ( Nigeria ); Accra , Cape Coast ( Ghana ) and Fernando Pó ( Equatorial Guinea ). The Krio language of

4590-465: The course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Following the Jamaican Maroons and Barbadian rebels, Afro-Caribbean immigrants settled in Freetown, Sierra Leone and in settlements across the Freetown peninsula throughout the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as missionaries, artisans and colonial officials such as the Porter family from Jamaica . Prominent Creole families of more recent Afro-Caribbean ancestry include

4675-408: The first four months. Although initially there was no hostility between the two groups, after King Tom's death the next Temne chief retaliated for a slave trader's burning of his village. He threatened to destroy Granville Town. The Temne ransacked Granville Town and took some Black Poor into slavery, while others became slave traders . In early 1791 Alexander Falconbridge returned, to find only 64 of

4760-407: The first group died due to disease and warfare with indigenous peoples. About 64 survived to establish the second Granville Town following the failed first attempt at colonization between 1787 and 1789. In 1792, 1200 Nova Scotian Settlers from Nova Scotia settled and established the Colony of Sierra Leone and the settlement of Freetown ; these were African Americans and their descendants. Many of

4845-476: The freed slaves (which are now a distinct ethnic and cultural group, the Creoles), and the lingua franca of Sierra Leone. Most ethnic and cultural Creoles live in and around Freetown , 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 settled). However, because of their cultural influence in Sierra Leone, especially during

4930-718: The grid of a North American colonial town. The families originally from Nova Scotia – the Balls, Burdens, Chambers, Davis , Dixons, Georges (descendants of David George ), Keelings, Leighs, Moores, Peters (descendants of Thomas Peters or Stephen Peters), Prestons, Snowballs , Staffords, Turners, Willoughsby, Williams, and the Goodings – took up residence in Settler Town . The town was in close proximity to Cline Town (then Granville Town). Eighty percent of Nova Scotians lived on five streets: Rawdon, Wilberforce, Howe, East, and Charlotte street. The next group of settlers were Jamaican Maroons from Cudjoe's Town , who arrived in Freetown, via Nova Scotia, in 1800. Notable families such as

5015-411: The interior that were considered 'more African'. Creole communities in Africa have grown in several ways. Elements of their culture, including language and music, have come to dominate popular culture on the islands. In Creole-established cities on the African mainland, some non-Creoles have assimilated into Creole societies, which are perceived to enjoy privileged status. Those seeking acceptance into

5100-410: The intermingling of African Recaptives with Afro-Caribbeans and African Americans . Perhaps due to the range of divergent descriptions and lack of a coherent definition, Norwegian anthropologist T. H. Eriksen concludes: “A Creole society, in my understanding, is based wholly or partly on the mass displacement of people who were, often involuntarily, uprooted from their original home, shedding

5185-481: The international African slave trade beginning in 1808, they patrolled off the continent to intercept illegal shipping. The British resettled Liberated Africans from slave ships at Freetown. The Liberated Africans included people from the Yoruba, Igbo, Efik, Fante, and other ethnicities of West Africa. Some members of indigenous Sierra Leone ethnicities, were also among the Liberated Africans resettled at Freetown; they also assimilated into Creole culture. Others came to

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5270-456: The involvement of Lutheran Bible Translators, Krio-language translations of the New Testament and Old Testament were published in 1986 and 2013. While English is Sierra Leone's official language, the Ministry of Education 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

5355-416: The island during the colonial era in the 19th century. Pichi is the most widely spoken language of the capital Malabo , next to Spanish , and it serves as a primary language to probably the majority of the capital's inhabitants. Pichi is also used as a primary language in a number of villages and towns along the Coast of Bioko – amongst them Sampaca , Fiston , Basupú , Barrio las Palmas and Luba , and

5440-467: The language. Krio is an English-based creole from which descend Nigerian Pidgin English and Cameroonian Pidgin English and Pichinglis . It is also similar to English-based creole languages spoken in the Americas, especially Jamaican Patois (Jamaican Creole), Sranan Tongo (Surinamese Creole), Bajan Creole and Gullah language , but it has its own distinctive character. It also shares some linguistic similarities with non-English creoles, such as

5525-405: 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

5610-443: The main features of their social and political organisations on the way, brought into sustained contact with people from other linguistic and cultural areas and obliged to develop, in creative and improvisational ways, new social and cultural forms in the new land, drawing simultaneously on traditions from their respective places of origin and on impulses resulting from the encounter.” Thomas Hylland Eriksen , Creolisation as

5695-530: 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 . 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 and Freetown. The first feature-length documentary entirely spoken in Krio

5780-407: The new colony of Freetown, which was established by British abolitionists under the Sierra Leone Company . In 1800, the British government also transported 550 Jamaican maroons to Sierra Leone and subsequent waves of African American and Afro-Caribbean immigrants would settle in Sierra Leone throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. After Britain and the United States abolished

5865-1011: The objective of training Christian clergy and educators, who were later dispatched across West Africa to spread Christianity. Creole denominations are mainly Protestant with the Anglican and Methodist churches having the largest Creole congregants. However, smaller denominations such as the Baptist church and Countess of Huntingdon denominations in places such as Freetown , and Waterloo , Sierra Leone, also have Creole attendees, although these are smaller in number compared to Creole Anglicans and Methodists. Creole church attendees congregate at traditional "Creole" churches in Freetown such as St. George's Cathedral , Trinity Church , St John's Maroon Church , Ebenezer Methodist Church , Rawdon Street Methodist Church , and Zion Methodist Church, Wilberforce Street . Prominent Creole Anglicans include Edward Fasholé-Luke and Creoles such as Arthur Thomas Porter , Canon Harry Sawyerr and Robert Wellesley-Cole . Well-known Creole Methodists include Sylvia Blyden ,

5950-458: The original residents (39 black men, 19 black women, and six white women). The 64 people had been cared for by a Greek and a colonist named Thomas Kallingree at Fourah Bay , an abandoned African village. There the settlers reestablished Granville Town. After that time, they were called the "Old Settlers". By this time the Province of Freedom had been destroyed; Granville Sharp did not lead the next settlement movement. The proponents and directors of

6035-401: The other Creole languages of the Atlantic Basin, still has to struggle with this difficult legacy. In spite of its great importance as a community language, and as a national and international lingua franca, Pichi enjoys no official recognition nor support, is conspicuously absent from public discourse and the official media, and has no place in the educational policy of Equatorial Guinea. Pichi

6120-532: The past tense and 'go' for the future, the absence of either shows the present tense. Aspect is shown by 'dòn' for perfective and 'de' for imperfective. Infinitive is marked by 'fòr' and conditional by a combination of 'bin' and 'go'. Tendency is marked by 'kin' and 'nòbar'. The verbal paradigm is as follows: The hortative is marked by 'lè' e.g. 'lè wi go, lè wi tòk' and the optative by 'mè' e.g. 'mè yu Kingmara kam, mè yu Will bi duo' The following interrogatives can be used: In addition, like many other creoles,

6205-552: The period of colonial rule, Sierra Leoneans (particularly among the upper class) were discouraged from speaking Krio; but after independence from the United Kingdom in 1961, writers and educators began promoting its use. In the 1960s, Thomas Decker translated some of Shakespeare's plays into Krio, and composed original poetry in the language. In the 1980s, the New Testament was translated into Krio. Beginning with

6290-442: The period of colonial rule, their language is used as the lingua franca among all the ethnic groups in Sierra Leone. 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 , Nigeria , Cameroon , Equatorial Guinea , Senegal , and Guinea . As a result of Sierra Leone Creole migratory patterns, in

6375-410: The reader to puzzle out what was said. Pichinglis Pichinglis , commonly referred to by its speakers as Pichi and formally known as Fernando Po Creole English ( Fernandino ), is an Atlantic English-lexicon creole language spoken on the island of Bioko , Equatorial Guinea . It is an offshoot of the Krio language of Sierra Leone , and was brought to Bioko by Krios who immigrated to

6460-569: The riots against the British from the settlers. The Maroons later fought against the Temne during the Temne Attack of 1801. The dispute with the Temne was over "rent" which the Temne felt they were owed by the colony. In a twist that became the hallmark of politics in the subregion, the Temne had indeed signed a treaty granting full sovereignty to the Colony but then turned around to say that this

6545-456: The settlement voluntarily, seeing opportunities in Creole culture in the society. The first settlers to find a colony in Sierra Leone were the so-called "Black Poor": African Americans and Afro-Caribbean. 411 settlers arrived in May 1787. Some were Black Loyalists who were either evacuated or travelled to England to petition for a land of their own; Black Loyalists had joined British forces during

6630-578: The settlers from Nova Scotia and the Caribbean were Christians. Many liberated Africans also converted to Christianity. The Creoles were instrumental in the establishment of Pan-African Christianity. Between 1840 and 1900, at least six out of every ten black African clergy in the Anglican Church across West Africa was a Creole. By the 1820s, Sierra Leone already had more Christians than the entirety of tropical Africa. Educational institutions such as Fourah Bay College were initially established with

6715-400: The supposed simplification of English structures that European observers believed they recognized in a language they did not master, lent additional weight to racist notions about a generally assumed superiority of European languages and their speakers. As a consequence, Pichi was considered an impoverished, debased form of English by Spanish colonial administrators and missionaries. Pichi, like

6800-570: The term Creole applies to the descendants of enslaved Africans born on the island, while in South Africa , the blending of East African and Southeast Asian slaves with Dutch settlers, later produced a creolized population. The Fernandino Creole peoples of Equatorial Guinea are a mix of Afro-Cubans with Emancipados and English-speaking Liberated Africans , while the Americo-Liberians and Sierra Leone Creoles resulted from

6885-480: The term Creole has been used since 1792 to represent descendants of African or ethnically mixed parents as well as children of French and Spanish descent with no racial mixing. Its use to describe languages started from 1879, while as an adjective, from 1748. In some Spanish-speaking countries, the word Criollo is used today to describe something local or very typical of a particular Latin American country. In

6970-963: The term refers only to the descendants of enslaved Africans. In Africa, the term Creole refers to any ethnic group formed during the European colonial era, with some mix of African and non-African racial or cultural heritage. Creole communities are found on most African islands and along the continent's coastal regions where indigenous Africans first interacted with Europeans. As a result of these contacts, five major Creole types emerged: Portuguese , African American , Dutch , French and British . The Crioulos of African or mixed Portuguese and African descent eventually gave rise to several ethnic groups in Cape Verde , Guinea-Bissau , São Tomé e Príncipe , Angola and Mozambique . The Mauritian and Seychellois Creoles are Africans with some French cultural ancestry and are Christianized . On La Réunion ,

7055-419: The vast majority of them reside in Freetown and its surrounding Western Area region of Sierra Leone. From their mix of peoples, the Creoles developed what is now the native Krio language , a creole deriving from English, indigenous West African languages, and other European languages. It is the most widely spoken language in virtually all parts of Sierra Leone. As the Krio language is spoken by 96 percent of

7140-458: Was cut off from the direct influence of English, the language from which it inherited the largest part of its lexicon. Some of the present-day differences between Pichi and its sister languages can be attributed to internal developments in Pichi. But without doubt, an equally important reason for the separate development of Pichi is the extensive degree of language contact with Equatoguinean Spanish ,

7225-411: Was not their understanding. This misunderstanding became violent, when in 1801, the Temne attacked Freetown. The assault failed, resulting instead in the expulsion of the Temne from the area. The next migrations of transatlantic immigrants between 1800 and 1819 were smaller in comparison to the early Nova Scotian Settlers and Jamaican Maroon immigrants. Afro-Caribbean and Liberated African soldiers from

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