Kreyol is an English-based creole language spoken in Liberia

Liberia

Liberia , officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Sierra Leone on the west, Guinea on the north and Côte d'Ivoire on the east. Liberia's coastline is composed of mostly mangrove forests while the more sparsely populated inland consists of forests that open...

. It is spoken by 1,500,000 people as a second language (1984 census). It is historically and linguistically related to Merico

Merico language

Merico or Americo-Liberian is an English-based creole language spoken until recently in Liberia by Americo-Liberians, descendants of the Settlers, freed slaves and African-Americans who immigrated from the southern US between 1819 and 1860...

, another creole spoken in Liberia, but is grammatically distinct from it. It is also distinguished from the Kru Pidgin English, a variant of Kreyol used by the Kru

Kru

The Kru are an ethnic group who live in interior of Liberia. Their history is one marked by a strong sense of ethnicity and resistance to occupation. In 1856 when part of Liberia was still known as the independent Republic of Maryland, the Kru along with the Grebo resisted Maryland settlers'...

 fishermen.

Liberian Kreyol language developed from Liberian Interior Pidgin English, the Liberian version of West African Pidgin English

West African Pidgin English

West African Pidgin English, also called Guinea Coast Creole English, was the lingua franca, or language of commerce, spoken along the West African coast during the period of the Atlantic slave trade...

 though it has been significantly influenced by Liberian Settler English. Its phonology owes much to Liberia's Niger–Congo languages

Niger–Congo languages

The Niger–Congo languages constitute one of the world's major language families, and Africa's largest in terms of geographical area, number of speakers, and number of distinct languages. They may constitute the world's largest language family in terms of distinct languages, although this question...

. It has been analyzed having a post-creole continuum. As such, rather than being a pidgin

Pidgin

A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common. It is most commonly employed in situations such as trade, or where both groups speak languages different from the language of the...

 wholly distinct from English, it is a range of varieties that extend from the highly pidginized to one that shows many similarities to English as spoken elsewhere in West Africa

West Africa

West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...

.

Kreyol originated in Liberia among the Settlers, the free English-speaking

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 African American

African American

African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

s from the southern United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 who emigrated to Liberia between 1819 and 1860. It has since borrowed some words from French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 and from other West African languages.

Kreyol is spoken mostly as an inter-tribal lingua franca

Lingua franca

A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...

 in the interior of Liberia.

Grammatical features

Kreyol uses no for negation, bi as the copula, fɔ for "to" in verbal infinitives.

See also

• Krio language
  Krio language
  Sierra Leone Krio is the lingua franca and the de facto national language spoken throughout the West African nation of Sierra Leone. Krio is spoken by 97% of Sierra Leone's population and unites the different ethnic groups in the country, especially in their trade and social interaction with each...
  
  , another English-based creole spoken in Sierra Leone
• Fernando Poo Creole English
  Fernando Poo Creole English
  Fernando Po Creole is one of the names under which the English-lexicon Creole of Bioko Island is known...
  
  , another English-based creole spoken in Fernando Po
  Bioko
  Bioko is an island 32 km off the west coast of Africa, specifically Cameroon, in the Gulf of Guinea. It is the northernmost part of Equatorial Guinea with a population of 124,000 and an area of . It is volcanic with its highest peak the Pico Basile at .-Geography:Bioko has a total area of...
  
   by the Krio descended community there.
• Creole language
  Creole language
  A creole language, or simply a creole, is a stable natural language developed from the mixing of parent languages; creoles differ from pidgins in that they have been nativized by children as their primary language, making them have features of natural languages that are normally missing from...