Mauritian Creole
| Mauritian Creole | |
|---|---|
| Kreol Morisien | |
| Native to | Mauritius |
|
Native speakers
|
1,070,000 (2011) |
|
Indo-European
|
|
| Dialects | |
| Latin script | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | mori1278 |
| Linguasphere |
(to 51-AAC-cee)
|
51-AAC-cec
Mauritian Creole or Morisyen (Mauritian Creole: kreol morisien) is a French-based creole language spoken in Mauritius. In addition to the French base of the language, there are also a number of words from English and from the many African and South Asian languages that have been spoken on the island.
Mauritian creole is the lingua franca of Mauritius. Mauritius, formerly a British colony, has kept English as its official language, although French is more widely spoken. Mauritians tend to speak Creole at home and French in the workplace. French and English are spoken in schools. Though a large percentage of Mauritians are of Indian descent, they primarily speak Creole, which is their ancestral tongue in the sense that their ancestors along with those of African, European and Chinese descent helped create the creole language together centuries ago, when Mauritius was the meeting place of peoples from different continents who together founded a nation with its own culture and history. Today, around 1 million people speak the language.
Mauritian creole is a French-based creole language, closely related to Seychellois Creole, Rodriguan Creole and Chagossian Creole. The language's relationship to other French-based creole languages besides these is controversial. Robert Chaudenson (2001) and Henri Wittmann (1972, 1987, etc.) have argued that Mauritian creole is closely related to Réunion Creole, while Philip Baker and Chris Corne (1982), on the other hand, have argued that Réunion influence on Mauritian was minimal and that the two languages are barely more similar to one another than they are to other French-based creoles.
Although the Portuguese were the first Europeans to visit Mauritius, they did not settle there. The small Portuguese element in the vocabulary of Mauritian creole derives rather from the Portuguese element in European maritime jargons (such as Sabir and Lingua Franca) or from enslaved Africans or Asians who came from areas where Portuguese was used as a trade language. Similarly, while the Dutch had a colony on Mauritius between 1638 and 1710, all the Dutch settlers evacuated the island to Réunion, leaving behind only a few runaway slaves who would have no discernible impact on Mauritian creole. The French then claimed Mauritius and first settled it between 1715 and 1721.
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