The Sierra Leonean Creole or Krio is an English-based creole language that is the lingua franca and de facto national language spoken throughout the West African nation of Sierra Leone. Krio is spoken by 96 percent of the country's population,[Thompson, V. A. D. (2013). The Transformation of Freetown Christianity, 1960–2000. Doctoral Dissertation, University of London.] and has also heavily influenced Sierra Leonean English.[Saidu Bangura, 2015 A Roadmap to Sierra Leone English: A Sociohistorical and Ecological Perspective, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, PhD thesis, p. 124, 222, 232-242.] The language is native to the Sierra Leone Creole people, or Krios, a community of about 104,311
Overview
The Krio language is an offshoot of the languages and variations of English brought by the Nova Scotian Settlers from
North America,
Jamaican Maroons from
Jamaica, and the numerous liberated African slaves who settled in Sierra Leone.
All freed slaves—the Jamaican Maroons, African Americans, and Liberated Africans—influenced Krio, but the Jamaican Maroons, Igbo people, Yoruba people and Akan people Liberated Africans were the most influential. It seems probable that the basic grammatical structure and vowel system of Krio is an offshoot of Jamaican Maroon Creole
As an English-based creole language, the Sierra Leone Krio is distinct from a pidgin as it is a language in its own right,
In Sierra Leone, the Krio Language is spoken by people with different degrees of fluency, as well as regional changes to the Krio. Many of the speakers of Sierra Leone Krio live in or close to the capital city, Freetown. As of 2007, there were close to 350,000 individuals who spoke Krio as a primary language. Even more individuals were using it as a main language for communication purposes in the country as a whole.
Language origins
One theory suggests the early roots of Krio 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.[Fourah Bay College, Freetown: Guide to Krio, (held at SOAS Univ. of London Library, 195?]
Language usage
Krio usage in Sierra Leone
Most ethnic and cultural Creoles live in and around Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, and their community accounts for about 3% to 6% of Sierra Leone's total population (Freetown is the province where the returned slaves from London and Nova Scotia settled).[Simon Schama: Rough Crossings, London, 2007] 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.
Krio speakers abroad
The Sierra Leone 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, Equatorial Guinea, Senegal, and Guinea.[A. Wyse: Krios of Sierra Leone, London (1989)] As a result of Sierra Leone Creole migratory patterns, in the Gambia, the Gambian Creoles or Aku people community speak Krio. The Fernando Po Creole English language of Equatorial Guinea is also largely a result of Sierra Leone Creole migrants. 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 imported Krio words like sabi into Nigerian Pidgin English.
Language revival
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. Beginning with the involvement of Lutheran Bible Translators,[ Link to dedication report] Krio-language translations of the New Testament and Old Testament were published in 1986 and 2013.
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.
Classification
Krio is an English-based creole from which descend Nigerian Pidgin English and Cameroonian Pidgin English and Pichinglis. It is also similar to English-based creole languages spoken in the Americas, especially Jamaican Patois (Jamaican Creole), Sranan Tongo (Surinamese Creole), Bajan Creole and Gullah language, but it has its own distinctive character. It also shares some linguistic similarities with non-English creoles, such as the French-based creoles of the Caribbean.
Phonology
Krio contains seven monophthongs in its inventory of vowels, all of which can be nasalized. Most nasal vowels occur in words derived from English, in cases where an oral vowel precedes a nasal consonant. The nasal consonant is deleted and the vowel is nasalized.[ Text was copied from this source, which is available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.]
Vowels
Krio has three diphthongs: /ai/, /au/, and /ɔi/.
Consonants
There are 24 phonemes in the consonant inventory of Krio.
Consonant cluster reduction is a common process in phonology. It is typically applied to lexical items in English containing two or more consonants in a row including an initial s. Some examples include:[Finney, Malcolm. 2007. Universal and substrate influence on the phonotactics and syllable structure of Krio. In Huber, Magnus & Velupillai, Viveka (eds.), Synchronic and diachronic perspectives on contact languages, (Creole Languages Library Series 32), 23–42. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.]
|
| plit | 'split' |
| trit | 'street' |
| tret | 'straight' |
| pit | 'spit' |
| prɛd | 'spread' |
| tap | 'stop' |
Replacing a stop for a fricative, known as stopping substitution, is also common in words of English origin. Some examples include:
|
| dɛm | 'them' |
| brɔda | 'brother' |
| tɛŋki | 'thanks' |
| ebi | 'heavy' |
| dɛbul | 'devil' |
| tit | 'teeth' |
There is also evidence of the influence of West African languages in the presence of the labial-velar /kp/ and /gb/, as in:
|
| akpɔlɔ | 'frog' |
| agbo | 'medicinal herb' |
| gbagbati | 'show of force' |
| kpatakpata | 'completely finished' |
Krio is a tonal language and makes contrastive use of tone in both African and English words. Examples of minimal pairs of words distinguished by tone patterns are:[Finney, Malcolm. 2004. Tone assignment on lexical items of English and African origin in Krio. In Escure, Genevieve & Schwegler, Armin (eds.), Creoles, contact and language change: Linguistics and social implications, 221–236. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.]
|
ale
'skin-irritating herb' | ale
'go away' | | |
| | baba
'a young boy' | baba
'a barber' | baba
'a type of drum' |
| | bebi
'a baby or a doll' | bebi
'girlfriend or attractive young woman' | |
| | brɔda
'elder brother or older male relative' | brɔda
'brother' | |
| | fada
'a Catholic priest' | fada
'father' | fada
‘God’ |
| | kɔntri
'someone from the countryside' | kɔntri
'a country' | |
Orthography
Krio uses the Latin script but without Qq and Xx and with three additional letters from the African reference alphabet, Latin epsilon (open E), Ŋŋ (eng), and Open O (open O). Three tones can be distinguished in Krio and are sometimes marked with grave accent (à), acute accent (á), and circumflex (â) accents over the vowels for low, high, and falling tones respectively but these accents are not employed in normal usage.
The complete alphabet with digraphs:
| + Krio alphabet
! Krio letter or digraph
! Example word
! English meaning |
| A, a | wata | water |
| Aw, aw | naw | now |
| Ay, ay | yay | eye |
| B, b | bin | already |
| Ch, ch | cham | chew |
| D, d | dia | expensive (< dear) |
| E, e | let | late |
| Ɛ, ɛ | ɛp | help |
| F, f | fɔs | first |
| G, g | got | goat |
| H, h | Harry | Harry |
| I, i | titi | little girl, small female child |
| J, j | jomp | jump |
| K, k | kɔntri | country |
| L, l | liv | live (being alive) |
| M, m | muf/muv | to move |
| N, n | nak | knock |
| Ny, ny | nyu | new |
| Ŋ, ŋ | siŋ | sing |
| O, o | wok | to work |
| Ɔ, ɔ | bɔn | born, give birth to |
| Ɔy, ɔy | jɔy | joy, happiness |
| P, p | padi | friend |
| R, r | ren | rain |
| S, s | saf | soft |
| Sh, sh | shem | shame, to be ashamed |
| T, t | tif | steal (< thief) |
| T, t | tranga | difficult, hard |
| U, u | uman | woman |
| V, v | vot | vote |
| W, w | waka | walk |
| Y, y | yala | yellow |
| Z, z | zɛd | the letter 'z' |
| Zh, zh | plɛzhɔ | pleasure |
Grammar
The particle dɛm is appended after a noun to mark the plural, e.g. uman ('woman'):
Verbs
Verbs do not conjugate according to person or number, but reflect their tense. Tense, aspect and mood are marked by one or more tense or aspect markers. The tense markers are 'bin' for the past tense and 'go' for the future, the absence of either shows the present tense. Aspect is shown by dɔn (from English 'done') for perfective and de (cf. English 'there', Yoruba dé, dà) for imperfective. Infinitive is marked by fɔ (from English 'for') and conditional by a combination of bin and go. Tendency is marked by kin and nɔba/naba.
The verbal paradigm is as follows:
|
| fɔ go | infinitive |
| go | present simple (unmarked) |
| de go | present progressive |
| dɔn go | perfect |
| dɔn de go | perfect progressive |
| go go | future simple |
| go de go | future progressive |
| go dɔn go | future perfect |
| go dɔn de go | future perfect progressive |
| bin go | past simple |
| bin de go | past progressive |
| bin dɔn go | past perfect |
| bin dɔn de go | past perfect progressive |
| bin fɔ go | conditional |
| bin fɔ de go | conditional progressive |
| bin fɔ dɔn go | conditional perfect |
| bin fɔ dɔn de go | conditional perfect progressive |
| kin go | tendency |
| nɔ kin go, nɔba go | negative tendency |
The hortative is marked by lɛ (from English 'let'), e.g. lɛ wi go ('let's go'), lɛ wi tɔk ('let's talk') and the optative mood by mek (from English 'make'), e.g. mek yu kiŋdɔm kam ('let your kingdom come'), mek wetin yu want ('let your will be done').
Interrogatives
The following interrogatives can be used:
|
| udat | who |
| wetin | what |
| ustɛm | when |
| usai | where |
| wetin-mek | why |
| us | which |
| ɔmɔs | how much/many |
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'). Additionally the question particles ɛnti and nɔ so/noto so can be used at the start or end of the phrase respectively.
Pronouns
There is no distinction between masculine and feminine in any person and, unlike Standard English, there is a second person plural form. However, there are the hints of Nominative case, Accusative case and Genitive case cases.
|
| a, mi, mi | I, me, my |
| yu | you, your |
| i, in, am, im | he/she/it, him/her/it, his/her/its |
| wi | we, us, our |
| unu, una, ina | you, you, your (plural) |
| dɛm, dɛn | they, them, theirs |
Vocabulary
Below are some common words in Krio, showing words from various origins:
|
| Sierra Leone |
| Hello, Hi |
| Friend |
| Girl |
| Boy |
| Me |
| Child |
| Ugly |
| You |
| Conflict |
| Sorry |
| Talk |
| Forget |
| Answer |
| Make |
| Many, Too much |
| Woman |
| Stop |
| Mouth |
| Kill |
| People |
| What |
| Where |
| Why |
| When |
| Angry |
| Expensive |
| Walk |
| Chew |
| Car |
| Know |
| Fight |
| Wife |
| Stop |
| Mother |
| Father |
| Grandmother |
| Grandfather |
| Steal |
| Jump |
| Rip |
| Dead |
| Bye |
Below are some sample sentences in Krio:
|
| "Hello", "Hi" |
| "What is your name?" |
| "My name is James." |
| "Where do you come from?" |
| "I come from Hastings." |
| "What work do you do?" |
| "I am a teacher." |
| "At what school do you teach?" |
| "I teach at Prince of Wales." |
| "I am happy to meet you." |
| "I myself am happy to meet you." |
| "OK, I am going now." |
| "Alright, we will talk again." |
Below is a sample of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Krio:
|
| Atikul Wan | Artikul Wan | Article 1 |
| Ɛvribɔdi bɔn fri ɛn gɛt in yon rayt, nobɔdi nɔ pas in kɔmpin. Wi ɔl ebul fɔ tink ɛn fɛnɔt wetin rayt ɛn rɔŋ. Ɛn pantap dat wi fɔ sabi aw fɔ liv lɛk wan big famili. | Òll mòrtalmandèm bòrn fri èn ekwal pan dignity èn raihtdèm. Dhèm gèt ratio èn kònshèns èn pantap dhat dhèm fòr akt with dhèm kòmpin na bròdharhudim spirit. | 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. |
Films
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 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.[ video clip of Krio-dubbed version of Zefirelli's Jesus of Nazareth.
]
Krio is heard in the English language documentary War Don Don. The film's title is in Krio.
The first feature-length documentary entirely spoken in Krio is Boris Gerrets' film Shado’man (2014).
Fiction
Peter Grant, the protagonist of Ben Aaronovitch's Rivers of London series, is the London-born son of an immigrant from Sierra Leone. While speaking English with other characters, he speaks Krio with his mother. Aaronovitch includes some such conversations in his text, leaving the reader to puzzle out what was said.
See also
Further reading
External links
