| Seychellois Creole | |
| Nativename: | kreol, seselwa |
| States: | Seychelles |
| Date: | 1998 |
| Ref: | e18 |
| Script: | Latin |
| Familycolor: | Creole |
| Fam1: | French Creole |
| Fam2: | Bourbonnais Creoles |
| Dia1: | Chagossian Creole |
| Agency: | Lenstiti Kreol |
| Iso3: | crs |
| Glotto: | sese1246 |
| Glottorefname: | Seselwa Creole French |
| Lingua: | 51-AAC-cea (& -ceb) |
| Map: | Location Seychelles AU Africa.svg |
| Mapcaption: | Location of Seychelles where the creole is spoken |
| Ethnicity: | Seychellois Creoles |
Seychellois Creole, also known as Kreol, Seselwa Creole French, and Seselwa Creole is the French-based creole language spoken by the Seychelles Creole people of the Seychelles. It shares national language status with English and French (in contrast to Mauritian and Réunion Creole, which lack official status in Mauritius and France).
The Seychelles were first settled in 1770, by French settlers from the island of Mauritius. The islands population was mostly made up of slaves with a few whites and free blacks. Over time the Mauritian creole that was spoken by the slave population diverged enough from Mauritian Creole to be considered its own creole separate from Mauritian Creole. It further diverged after the freeing of Seychelles slaves in 1835 and the subsequent influx of Bantu peoples from East Africa to the islands.[1]
49 fables of La Fontaine were adapted to the dialect around 1900 by Rodolphine Young (1860–1932) but these remained unpublished until 1983.[2]
The Seychelles gained independence in 1976 and since 1978 Seychellois Creole has been one of the country's three official languages. It is currently the native language of over 99% of the country's population. Seychellois Creole is the primary language of music, literature, politics, public usage, and mass media in the Seychelles. Though Seychellois literature has been increasingly replaced by English literature.
While Seychellois laws are written in English, the working language of the National Assembly is Creole and the verbatim record of its meetings provides an extensive corpus for its contemporary use in a formal setting.[3]
On June 27th 2024 Google announced it would be adding Seychellois Creole to Google Translate. Later Seychellois Creole was added under the name Seselwa Creole French.[4]
Seychellois Creole follows in subject verb object word order.
Pronouns in Seychellois Creole fall into three categories: dependent subject, independent subject, and adnominal possessive, with there being no gender distinctions. dependent pronouns can only be subjects not objects but independent pronouns can be both.
| dependent | independent | adnominal possessive | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st singular | mon | mwan | mon | |
| 2nd singular | ou | ou | ou | |
| 3rd singular | i | li | son | |
| 1st plural | nou | nou | nou | |
| 2nd plural | zot | zot | zot | |
| 3rd plural | zot | zot | zot |
Verbs in Seychellois Creole take one of two forms, long and short. Short verbs are used when the verb is directly followed by a noun or when an adverb is present and the long verbs being used otherwise.
| retourn-en | retourn | |
| donn-en | donn | |
| sant-e | sant |
There is some variation in the language spoken in the Seychelles based on geography with limited differences in morphosyntax and lexicon, but not enough to speak of separate dialects. The only distinct non-standard dialect of Seychellois Creole is Chagossian Creole spoken by Chagossians in the United Kingdom, Mauritius, and the Seychelles.[5]
In several Seychellois Creole words derived from French, the French definite article (le, la and les) has become part of the word; for example, 'future' is lavenir (French l'avenir). The possessive is the same as the pronoun, so that 'our future' is nou lavenir. Similarly in the plural, les Îles Éloignées Seychelles in French ('the Outer Seychelles Islands') has become Zil Elwanyen Sesel in Creole. Note the z in Zil, as, in French, les Îles is pronounced pronounced as //le.z‿il//.
| Language | Word | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Creole | Nou | tou | bezwen | travay | ansanm | pou | kre | nou | lavenir | |||
| French (IPA) | pronounced as //nu‿z// | pronounced as //a.vɔ̃// | pronounced as //tus// | pronounced as //bə.zwɛ̃// | pronounced as //də// | pronounced as //tʁa.va.je// | pronounced as //ɑ̃.sɑ̃bl// | pronounced as //puʁ// | pronounced as //kʁe.e// | pronounced as //nɔtʁ// | pronounced as //av.niʁ// | |
| French | Nous | avons | tous | besoin | de | travailler | ensemble | pour | créer | notre | avenir | |
| Translation | We | all | need | to | work | together | to | create | our | future | ||
| Gloss | We | have | all | need | to | work | together | for | create | our | future | |
| Nouns | 5.6% | 2.6% | 2% | 1.3% | 0.9% | 0.7% | 0.3% | 0.1% | 0.1% | 1.1% | 14.6% | 85.4% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Verbs | 2.4% | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.8% | 0.2% | 0.2% | 4.1% | 95.9% | |||||
| Adjectives | 2.2% | 1.6% | 1.4% | 2.2% | 7.3% | 92.7% | |||||||
| Adverbs | 0% | 100% | |||||||||||
| Function Words | 0.9% | 0.9% | 99.1% | ||||||||||
| total | 4.2% | 1.6% | 1.4% | 1.2% | 0.9% | 0.4% | 0.2% | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.7% | 10.7% | 89.3% |