| Krio | |
|---|---|
| Spoken in | Sierra Leone |
| Region | West Africa |
| Ethnicity | Sierra Leone Creole people |
| Native speakers | 340,000 (date missing) 6,250,000 total (97% of Sierra Leone's population) |
| Language family |
English Creole
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | kri |
| Linguasphere | 52-ABB-bb |
Sierra Leone Krio is the lingua franca and the de facto national language spoken throughout the West African nation of Sierra Leone. Krio is spoken by 97% of Sierra Leone's population and unites the different ethnic groups in the country, especially in their trade and social interaction with each other. Krio is the primary language of communication among Sierra Leoneans at home and abroad. The language is native to the Sierra Leone Creole people or Krios, (a community of about 300,000 descendants of freed slaves from the West Indies, United States and United Kingdom), and is spoken as a second language by millions of other Sierra Leoneans belonging to the country's indigenous tribes. English is Sierra Leone's official language, while Krio, despite its common use throughout the country, has no official status.
The Krio language is an offshoot of the language brought by the Nova Scotian Settlers from North America, Maroons from Jamaica, and the numerous liberated African slaves who settled in Sierra Leone.
The vocabulary of Krio is derived primarily from English, while its sound system, grammar and sentence structure are heavily influenced by at least 12 African languages, including aspects of the Yoruba language of Nigeria. Krio's standard greeting, kushe, for instance, is derived from the Yoruba greeting è kú işé ("greetings on your work"); the krio word "pan", meaning (on top of/doing something), descends directly from the Jamaican patois word "pon", meaning the same thing; the krio expression "chaka-chaka", meaning (messy/untidy), also descends from Jamaican patois. This is because some of the freed slaves were from the West Indies, and in particular Jamaica (Jamaican Maroons).
All freed slaves—the Jamaican Maroons, African Americans, Nova Scotian Settlers, Sierra Leone Liberated Africans—influenced Krio, but the Jamaican Maroons, Nova Scotian Settlers, and Yoruba Liberated Africans were the most influential. The basic English structure of Krio is an offshoot of the English spoken by the Nova Scotians, while some of the African words in Krio come from the Yoruba language spoken by liberated Yorubas.
Krio is distinct from Pidgin English as it is a language in its own right, with fixed grammatical structures and rules. Krio also draws extensively from other European languages, namely 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".
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The early roots of Krio are believed to 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 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 the freed slaves (which are now a distinct ethnic and cultural group, the Creoles), and the lingua franca of Sierra Leone.[1]
Most ethnic and cultural Creoles live in and around Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, and their community accounts for only about 3% or 5.4% of Sierra Leone's total population (Freetown is the province where the return slaves from London and Nova Scotia settled).[2] However, because of their cultural influence in Sierra Leone — especially during the period of colonial rule — their language is used as the lingua franca among all the ethnic groups in Sierra Leone. Many Mendes, Temnes, and Limbas grow up in the interior of the country speaking both their native languages and Krio. Children born in Freetown to parents who are not ethnic Creoles grow up speaking Krio and only Krio as their mother tongue language.
The 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, and Equatorial Guinea.[3] As a result of Sierra Leone Creole migratory patterns, in the Gambia the Creole or Aku community speak the Aku language that is very similar to Krio. 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 krio words like sabi and na which were installed in to Nigerian Pidgin English.
During 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.
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 the language.
The New York City Public School system recently recognized Krio as a "home language" allowing children to be recognized as speaking Krio rather than other African languages.
Krio is an English-based creole similar in many respects to Nigerian Pidgin English and Cameroonian Pidgin English, but it has its own distinctive character. It is also similar to English-based creole languages spoken in the Americas, especially the Gullah language, Jamaican Patois (Jamaican Creole), and Belizean Creole. It also shares some linguistic similarities with non-English creoles, such as the French-based creole languages in the Caribbean.
As in English, there is no grammatical gender in Krio. However, there are the hints of nominative, accusative and genitive cases. Verbs do not conjugate according to person or number but reflect their tense.
The following interrogatives can be used:
| udat | who |
| wetin | what |
| ustem | when |
| usay | where |
| wetin mek | why |
In addition, like many other Creoles, a question can be asked simply by intonation. E.g. Yu de go?: 'Are you going' vs yu de go: 'you are going'
There is no distinction between masculine and feminine in any person and unlike English there is a 2nd person plural form.
| ah, mi, mi | I, me, my |
| yu, yu, yu | you, you, your |
| i, im, in | he, him, his, she, her, her |
| wi, wi, wi | we, us, our |
| una, una, unu | you, you, your (plural) |
| den, dem, den | they, them, theirs |
Krio uses the Latin Alphabet as used in English but without Qq and Xx and with three 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. An alternative orthography with Latin letters only has been devised by Thomas Decker.
The complete alphabet with digraphs follows with Decker's orthography in parentheses:
| Krio letter or digraph | Example word | English meaning |
|---|---|---|
| A,a | wata | water |
| Aw, aw | naw (nau) | now |
| Ay, ay | nayn (nain) | thats him |
| B, b | bɔku (bohku) | many, very much (< French beaucoup) |
| Ch, ch | cham | chew |
| D, d | dia(dya) | expensive (< dear) |
| E, e | let (leyt) | late |
| Ɛ, ɛ | ɛp (ep) | help |
| F, f | fɔs (fohs) | first |
| G, g | got(goat) | goat |
| Gb, gb | gbana/tranga | difficult (from <Temne) |
| H, h | argyu/argyument (agyu/agyument) | argument |
| I, i | titi | girl |
| J, j | jomp | jump |
| K, k | kɔntri (kohntri) | country |
| Kp, kp | kpatakpata | completely |
| L, l | liv | live |
| M, m | muv/muf | move |
| N, n | nak | knock |
| Ny, ny | nyu | new |
| Ŋ, ŋ | siŋ (sing) | sing |
| O, o | wok | work |
| Ɔ, ɔ | bɔn (bohn) | born, give birth, conceive |
| Ɔy, ɔy | ɔyl (ohyl) | oil |
| P, p | padi | friend |
| R, r | ren (reyn) | rain |
| S, s | saf | soft |
| Sh, sh | shap | sharp |
| T, t | tif | steal (< thief) |
| U, u | uman | woman |
| V, v | vot | vote |
| W, w | waka | walk |
| Y, y | yala | yellow |
| Z, z | ziro | zero |
| Zh, zh | plɛzhɔ (plehzhoh) | pleasure |
Below is a sample of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Krio:
| Krio | English |
|---|---|
| Atikul Wan
Ɛvribɔdi bɔn fri ɛn gɛt in yon rayt, nɔn wan nɔ pas in kɔmpin. Wi ɔl ebul fɔ tink ɛn fɛnɔt wetin rayt ɛn rɔŋ pantap dat wi fɔ sabi aw fɔ liv lɛk wan big famili. |
Article 1
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. |
Below are some sample sentences in Krio:
| Krio word | English meaning |
|---|---|
| Salone | Sierra Leone |
| Kusheh | Hello, Hi |
| Pady | Friend |
| Titi | Girl |
| Bobo | Boy |
| Pickin | Child |
| Wowoh | Ugly |
| Plabah | Conflict |
| bohku | Many, Too much |
| Uman | Woman |
| Leff | Stop |
| Wetin | What |
| Usay | Where |
| Wetin Meck | Why |
| Ustem | When |
| Vex | Angry |
| Dia | Expensive |
| Wakka | Walk |
| Cham | Chew |
| Motocar | Car |
| Sabi | Know |
| Fett | Fight |
| Wef | Wife |
| Lef | Stop |
| Mama | Mother |
| Papa | Father |
| Granny | Grandmother |
| Grandpa | Grandfather |
| tif | Steal |
| Jomp | Jump |
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 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.[4]