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.^[1] 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, Malaysia, Nigeria, Ghana, Jamaica, and Singapore 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^[2]^[3] 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	Country	Number of speakers^[4]	Notes
Atlantic [edit]
Western Caribbean [edit]
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)
Cayman Islands English	Cayman Islands	84,400 (2019)
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)	Dialect of Jamaican Patois
San Andrés–Providencia Creole	Colombia	12,000 (1981)
Eastern Caribbean [edit]
Virgin Islands Creole	US Virgin Islands British Virgin Islands Sint Maarten Puerto Rico^[10] Saint-Martin Sint Eustatius Saba	89,700 (2019)
Anguillan Creole	Anguilla	11,500 (2001)	Dialect of Antiguan and Barbudan Creole
Barbudan Creole	Antigua and Barbuda	1,400 (2011)	Dialect of Antiguan and Barbudan Creole
North Antiguan Creole	Antigua and Barbuda	48,000 (2011)	Dialect of Antiguan and Barbudan Creole
South Antiguan Creole	Antigua and Barbuda	6,800 (2011)	Dialect of Antiguan and Barbudan Creole
Saint Kitts Creole	Saint Kitts and Nevis	51,000 (2015)	Dialect of Antiguan and Barbudan Creole
Montserrat Creole	Montserrat	5,130 (2020)	Dialect of Antiguan and Barbudan Creole
Kokoy Creole	Dominica	unknown, growing^[11]	Dialect of Antiguan and Barbudan Creole
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	Trinidad and Tobago	1,000,000 (2011)
Bajan Creole	Barbados	257,000 (2018)
Guyanese Creole	Guyana	715,200 (2021)
Sranan Tongo	Suriname	669,600 (2016–2018)	Including 150,000 L2 users
Saramaccan	Suriname	34,500 (2018)
Ndyuka	Suriname	67,800 (2018)	Dialects: Aluku, Paramaccan
Kwinti	Suriname	250 (2018)
Southern-Caribbean [edit]
Venezuelan English Creole	Venezuela	unknown, likely endangered (2018)
San Nicolaas English	Aruba	15,000 (estimation) (2020)	Spoken in San Nicolaas, Aruba
North America [edit]
Gullah	United States	300 (2023)	Ethnic population: 250,000
Afro-Seminole Creole	United States Mexico	200 (1990)^[12]^[13]^[a]	Dialect of the Gullah language
West Africa [edit]
Krio	Sierra Leone	8,237,900 (2019)	Including 7,420,000 L2 speakers
Kreyol	Liberia	5,113,000 (2015)	Including 5,000,000 L2 speakers
Ghanaian Pidgin	Ghana	5,002,000 (2011)
Nigerian Pidgin	Nigeria	120,650,000	Including 116,000,000 L2 users
Cameroonian Pidgin	Cameroon	12,000,000 (2017)
Equatorial Guinean Pidgin	Equatorial Guinea	200,000 (2020)	Including 185,000 L2 users (2020)
Pacific [edit]
Hawaiian Pidgin^[b]	Hawaii United States	600,000 (2015)	Including 400,000 L2 users^[20]
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	Pitcairn Norfolk Island	1,786	Almost no L2 users. Has been classified as an Atlantic Creole based on internal structure.^[21]
Australian Kriol	Australia	17,160	Including 10,000 L2 users (1991)
Torres Strait Creole	Australia	6,170 (2016)
Bonin English	Japan	Possibly 1,000–2000 (2004)^{[citation needed]}
Singlish	Singapore	2,140,000^{[citation needed]}
Manglish	Malaysia	10,300,000^{[citation needed]}

Marginal

Bonin English, sometimes considered a mixed language
Iyaric ("Rastafarian")
Jamaican Maroon Spirit Possession Language

Other

Not strictly creoles, but sometimes called thus:

Notes

^ 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.^[14]
^ 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.^[15]

References

^ Velupillai, Viveka (2015). Pidgins, Creoles and Mixed Languages. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. p. 519. ISBN 978-90-272-5272-2.
^ Hancock, I. F. (1969). "A provisional comparison of the English-based Atlantic creoles". African Language Review. 8: 7–72.
^ Gilman, Charles (1978). "A Comparison of Jamaican Creole and Cameroon Pidgin English". English Studies. 59: 57–65. doi:10.1080/00138387808597871.
^ Eberhard, David M.; Simons, Gary F.; Fennig, Charles D., eds. (2022). Ethnologue: Languages of the World (25th ed.). Dallas, Texas: SIL International.
^ "Virgin Islands English Creole". Ethnologue. Retrieved 27 March 2023.
^ Villanueva Feliciano, Orville Omar. 2009. A Contrastive analysis of English Influences on the Lexicon of Puerto Rican Spanish in Puerto Rico and St. Croix
^ "Virgin Islands Creole English". Find a Bible. Retrieved 11 February 2023.
^ 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.
^ 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.
^ ^[5]^[6]^[7]^[8]^[9]
^ "Dominica fights to save Creole forged by slaves in Caribbean". AP News. 2021-07-02. Retrieved 2025-07-13.
^ "Afro-Seminole Creole". Ethnologue. Retrieved 11 February 2023.
^ "Creoles in Texas – 'The Afro-Seminoles'." Kreol Magazine. March 28, 2014. Accessed April 11, 2018.
^ Kuiper, Kathleen. "Black Seminoles." In: Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed April 13, 2018.
^ Holm, John A. (2000). An introduction to pidgin and creoles. Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press. p. 95. ISBN 9780521584609.
^ Sasaoka, Kyle (2019). "Toward a writing system for Hawai'i Creole". ScholarSpace.
^ Velupillai, Viveka (2013). Hawai'i Creole. pp. 252–261. ISBN 978-0-19-969140-1. {{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help)
^ "Hawai'i Pidgin". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2018-06-25.
^ 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
^ ^[16]^[17]^[18]^[19]
^ Avram, Andrei (2003). "Pitkern and Norfolk revisited". English Today. 19 (1): 44–49. doi:10.1017/S0266078403003092. S2CID 144835575.

External links

Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures

[15] 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.^[14]

[17] 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.^[15]

[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.

[:2-6] 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] [5]^[6]^[7]^[8]^[9]

[11] "Dominica fights to save Creole forged by slaves in Caribbean". AP News. 2021-07-02. Retrieved 2025-07-13.

[12] "Afro-Seminole Creole". Ethnologue. Retrieved 11 February 2023.

[kreol#1-13] "Creoles in Texas – 'The Afro-Seminoles'." Kreol Magazine. March 28, 2014. Accessed April 11, 2018.

[Britannica-14] Kuiper, Kathleen. "Black Seminoles." In: Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed April 13, 2018.

[16] Holm, John A. (2000). An introduction to pidgin and creoles. Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press. p. 95. ISBN 9780521584609.

[:0-18] Sasaoka, Kyle (2019). "Toward a writing system for Hawai'i Creole". ScholarSpace.

[:14-19] Velupillai, Viveka (2013). Hawai'i Creole. pp. 252–261. ISBN 978-0-19-969140-1. {{cite book}}: |journal= ignored (help)

[20] "Hawai'i Pidgin". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2018-06-25.

[21] 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

[22] [16]^[17]^[18]^[19]

[23] Avram, Andrei (2003). "Pitkern and Norfolk revisited". English Today. 19 (1): 44–49. doi:10.1017/S0266078403003092. S2CID 144835575.

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