Guinea-Bissau Creole : Ask Biography

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Guinea-Bissau Creole (native name kriol, kiriol or kriolu varying with dialects; crioulo da Guiné in Portuguese) is the lingua franca of the West African country of Guinea Bissau. It is a Portuguese-based creole language, closely related to Cape Verdean creole. Kriolu is spoken as a first language by approximately 15% (190,000) of Bissau-Guineans, and as a second language by approximately 46% (600,000); it is also spoken in parts of Senegal, primarily as a trade language. Portuguese itself is the official language of Guinea Bissau, although it is not spoken regularly by a majority of the population.

Upper Guinea creoles are the oldest Portuguese-based creoles, first appearing around the Portuguese settlements along the northwest coast of Africa. Bissau-Guinean 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 (Port. Filhos da Terra, Eng. Children of th Land) and Fijus di Fidalgu (Port. Filhos de Fidalgo, Eng. Children of Nobles) speak it, all of them are known, locally, as Portuguis because they adopt European habits, are Catholics and speak a Creole. They are descendants of Portuguese men and African women. Most of them still have Portuguese surnames, such as da Silva, Carvalho or Fonseca. Ziguinchor was, in fact, formed by Portugal in 1645, its name is derived from the Portuguese, Cheguei e choram (Eng. I came and they cry), because the natives assumed that they had come to enslave them . However the Portuguese implemented a base for trade and started to intermarry with African women. 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 became popular in Senegal because they see it has a link to their past. In Senegal, the Creole is the first language of at least 46,500 people (1998), it is mainly spoken in Ziguinchor but also there are speakers in other Casamance cities and in The Gambia.