Guinea-Bissau Creole

## Overview

**Guinea-Bissau Creole** (native name *kriol*, *kiriol*, *kriolu* and *Portuguis* varying with dialects; '**crioulo da Guiné'** in Portuguese) is the lingua franca of Guinea Bissau. It is also spoken in parts of Senegal, primarily as a trade language where it is also known as *"Purtuguis"*. It is a Portuguese-based creole language, closely related to Cape Verdean creole. *Kriol* is spoken as a first language by approximately 15% (190,000) of Bissau-Guineans and as a second language by approximately 50%, as of some time before 1992, and is the *de facto* language of national identity.

Creole is still expanding but with growing interference from Portuguese (decreolization): due to television, literacy, prestige and emigration to Portugal, and the African languages: through migration of speakers of native African languages to the main urban centers where the creole is prevalent. Standard Portuguese is the official language of Guinea-Bissau, but Creole is the language of trade, public services, the parliament, informal literature, entertainment and educational programming. It is not used in news media.

## History

Upper Guinea creoles are the oldest Portuguese-based creoles, first appearing around the Portuguese settlements along the northwest coast of Africa. Guinea-Bissau Creole is therefore among the first Portuguese Creoles. Portuguese merchants and settlers started to mix with locals almost immediately; this became a rule among Portuguese explorers and the main reason for the large number of Portuguese Creoles throughout the world. A small body of settlers called *lançados* ("the thrown out ones"), contributed to the spread of the Portuguese language and influence by being the intermediaries between the Portuguese and natives.

There are three main dialects of this Creole in Guinea-Bissau and Senegal:

* Bissau and Bolama
* Bafata
* Cacheu–Ziguinchor

The Creole's substrate language is the language of the local peoples: Mandingas, Manjacos, Pepéis and others, but most of the lexicon (around 80%) comes from Portuguese.

The dialect of Casamance (Ziguinchor), similar to the one of Cacheu (Guinea-Bissau) has some influence of French. '**Fijus di Terra'** (*Filhos da Terra*, English: Children of the Land) and '**Fijus di Fidalgu'** (Port. '**Filhos de Fidalgo'**, Eng. Children of Nobles) speak it, all of them are known, locally, as ***Purtuguis*** because they adopt European habits, are Catholics and speak a Creole. They are descendants of Portuguese men and African women. Most of them have Portuguese surnames, such as *da Silva*, *Carvalho* or *Fonseca*. The former Kingdom of Casamance made a friendship alliance with the Portuguese and the local king adopted European lifestyle and there were Portuguese in his court. In 1899, the city was ceded to France and in the middle of the 20th century, the language spread to the surrounding area. After Senegal's independence from France, the Creole people were seen as friends of the French, and discrimination by the more numerous northern Wolof speaking community started, which has caused Casamance to struggle for independence since 1982. Today, although they continue to struggle, the movement is more placid and learning Portuguese is popular in Casamance because they see it has a link to their past. It is also learned across Senegal since the independence of the country from France. In Senegal, the Creole is the first language of at least 46,500 people (1998), it is mainly spoken in Ziguinchor but there are also speakers in other Casamance cities and in The Gambia. In 2008, Senegal was admitted as an observer country of the Portuguese-speaking commonwealth in the VII CPLP Summit.