| Réunion Creole | |
|---|---|
| Kreol Réyoné | |
| Spoken in | Réunion |
| Native speakers | 600,000[1] (date missing) |
| Language family |
French Creole
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | rcf |
| Linguasphere | 51-AAC-cf |
Réunion Creole or Reunionese Creole (En), or Créole Réunionnais in French (in Réunion Creole: Kréol Réyoné) is a creole language spoken on Réunion. It is derived mainly from French and a few terms from other languages (Malagasy, Hindi, Portuguese, Gujurati and Tamil).[2] In the recent years, some groups have tried to come up with a spelling dictionary and grammar rules but there is still no official version. Partly because of the lack of an official orthography but also because schools are taught in French, Réunion Creole is rarely written. Notably, two Asterix translations into it have been published.[3]
Réunion Creole has been considered to be structurally different from both other French-based creoles and from French. It is thus considered a semi-creole, thus somewhat similar to Afrikaans.[4]
It is within the first fifty years of Reunion being inhabited that Reunionese Creole first formed.[2] Most of the people living in Reunion were either French, Malagasy or Indo-Portuguese.[2] Most families at this time had at least one first language French speaker. It is because of this that Reunionnese Creole is not fully a Creole like Mauritian Creole.[4]
It is now the native language of 90% of the island's population. [5]
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