French-based creole languages

A French Creole, or French-based Creole language, is a creole language based on the French language, more specifically on a 17th century koiné French extant in Paris, the French Atlantic harbors, and the nascent French colonies. French-based creole languages are spoken by millions of people worldwide, primarily in the Americas and in the Indian Ocean.

Descendants of the non-creole colonial koiné are still spoken in Canada (mostly in Quebec), the Prairies, Louisiana, Saint-Barthélemy (leeward portion of the island) and as isolates in other parts of the Americas.^[1]

Classification

Americas

• Varieties with progressive aspect marker ape^[2]
  • Balboa Creole is spoken on Balboa Island in the city of Newport Beach, California. It originated from a blending of French spoken by French families on the island with English, Spanish, and German.
  • Haitian Creole or Kreyòl ayisyen, is a language spoken primarily in Haiti. It is the largest French-derived language in the world, with a total of 12 million fluent speakers. It is also the most-spoken creole language in the world. French is its superstrate language, with numerous African languages and some indigenous Amerindian languages providing substrate input. Some words are also derived from English, and Spanish.
  • Louisiana Creole (Kréyol la Lwizyàn, locally called Kourí-Viní), the Louisiana creole, derived primarily from Haitian Creole.
• Varieties with progressive aspect marker ka^[3]
  • Antillean Creole is a language spoken primarily in the French (and some of the English) Lesser Antilles, such as Martinique, Guadeloupe, Îles des Saintes, Dominica, St. Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago and many other smaller islands. Although all of the creoles spoken on these islands are considered to be the same language, there are noticeable differences between the dialects of each island. Notably, the Creole spoken in the Eastern (windward) part of the island Saint-Barthélemy is a Creole spoken exclusively by a white population of European descent, imported into the island from Saint-Christophe in 1648.
    • Grenadian Creole French
    • Saint Lucian Creole French
  • French Guiana Creole or French Guianese Creole is a language spoken in French Guiana, and to a lesser degree in Suriname and Guyana. It is closely related to Antillean Creole, but there are some noteworthy differences between the two.
  • Karipúna, spoken in Brazil, mostly in Uaçá, the state of Amapá. It was developed by Amerindians in the Uaçá, with possible influences from immigrants from neighboring French Guiana and French territories of the Caribbean and with a recent lexical adstratum from Portuguese.
  • Lanc-Patuá, spoken more widely in the state of Amapá, is a variety of the former, possibly the same language.

Indian Ocean

• Varieties with progressive aspect marker ape^[4] - subsumed under a common classification as Bourbonnais Creoles
  • Mauritian Creole, spoken as the lingua franca (locally Kreol)
  • Agalega Creole, spoken in Agalega
  • Chagossian Creole, spoken by the former population of the islands
  • Réunion Creole, spoken in Réunion
  • Rodriguan Creole, spoken on the island of Rodrigues
  • Seychellois Creole, also known as Seselwa, it is an official language as well as the lingua franca

Pacific

• Tayo, spoken in New Caledonia

Africa

• Petit Mauresque or Little Moorish was spoken in North Africa
• Petit-Nègre was spoken in West Africa, especially in Côte d'Ivoire

Asia

• Tây Bồi, spoken in Vietnam

Notes