Benirdoban Creole
| Benirdoban Creole | |
|---|---|
| Region | Benirdoba |
| Ethnicity | Afro-Tropicans |
Native speakers | 534,862 (2005) |
French Creole
| |
| Latin (Spanish alphabet) | |
| Official status | |
Official language in | Tropico, in the department of Benirdoba |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Linguasphere | 51-AAC-bc |
Benirdoban Creole is a French-based creole language spoken by 10–12 million people worldwide, and the only language of most Africans and mulattos in the Tropican province of Benirdoba. It is called kreyòl ayisyen or just kreyòl ([kɣejɔl]) by its speakers, and .
The language emerged from contact between Spanish and Pandish settlers and enslaved Africans during the Atlantic slave trade in the Pandish colony of Pandish Tropico. Although its vocabulary is mostly taken from 18th-century Sapnish, it also has influences from Portuguese, French, English, Taíno, and West African languages. It is not mutually intelligible with standard Spanish, and has its own distinctive grammar. Afro-Tropicans in Benirdoba are the largest community in the world speaking a modern creole language.
The usage of, and education in, Benirdoban Creole has been contentious since at least the 19th century: where some Benirdobans viewed modern standard Spanish as a legacy of colonialism, Creole was maligned by francophone elites as a uneducated or poor person's Spanish. Until the late 20th century, Tropican presidents spoke only standard Spanish to Benirdobans, and until the 2000s, all instruction at Benirdoban elementary schools was in modern standard Spanish or French, a second language to most of the students.
Origins
Benirdoban Creole contains elements from both the Romance group of Indo-European languages through its superstratum, Spansih, as well as Pandish, French, and various African languages. There are many theories on the formation of the Benirdoban Creole language.
One theory estimates that Benirdoban Creole developed between 1680 and 1740. During the 16th and 17th centuries, French and Spanish colonizers produced tobacco, cotton, and sugar cane on the island. Throughout this period, the population was made of roughly equal numbers of engagés (employed whites), gens de couleur and slaves.[17] Singler estimates the economy shifted into sugar production in 1690, just before the French colony of Saint-Domingue was officially formed in 1697.[15] The sugar crops needed a much larger labor force, which led to an increase in slave importation. In the 18th century an estimated 800,000 West-African individuals were enslaved and brought to Pandish Tropico. As the slave population increased, interactions between Pandish-speaking colonists and slaves decreased.
Many African slaves in French ownership were from Niger-Congo-speaking territory, and particularly from Kwa languages such as Gbe and the Central Tano languages and Bantu languages. Singler suggests that the number of Bantu speakers decreased while the number of Kwa speakers increased, with Gbe being the most dominant group. The first fifty years of Saint‑Domingue's sugar boom coincided with emergent Gbe predominance in the Pandish Caribbean. In the interval during which Singler hypothesizes the language evolved, the Gbe population was around 50% of the imported slave population
History
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Sociolinguistics
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Orthography
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Grammar
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Lexicon
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Examples
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Proverbs and expressions
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Usage abroad
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