Native to Guiana Glottolog guia1246 | ISO 639-3 gcr | |
 | ||
Native speakers 150,000 - 200,000 (2016) Language family French Creole
Guianan Creole Linguasphere 51-AAC-cd (varieties:
51-AAC-cda to -cdd) | ||
French Guianan Creole or Guianan Creole is a French-based creole language spoken in French Guiana, and to a lesser degree, in Suriname and Guyana. It resembles Antillean Creole, but there are some lexical and grammatical differences between them. Antilleans can generally understand French Guianan Creole, though the notable differences between the French creole of French Guiana and those of the rest of the Atlantic may cause some instances of confusion. The differences consist of more French and Brazilian Portuguese influences (due to the proximity of Brazil and Portuguese presence in the country for several years.) There are also words of Amerindian and African origin. There are Guianan communities in Suriname and Guyana who continue to speak Guianan Creole.
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It should not be confused with the Guyanese Creole language, based on English, spoken in nearby Guyana.
History
Guianan Creole was a language spoken between slaves and settlers. But the conditions of Guianan Creole's constitution were quite different from the Creole of the West Indies, on the one hand because of the conflicts between French, English, Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish, and French dialects such as the Caen Have greatly influenced Guianan Creole, which has made it significantly different from the Creoles of Martinique, Haiti, St. Lucia and Guadeloupe.
There are, therefore, in Guianan Creole a few words in common with the Creoles of the West Indies, however, a number of words differentiate them significantly.
In addition, the Guianan pronounce the letter 'r' . Whereas in the West Indies the pronunciation of 'r' 'tends rather to approximate the semi-vowel ' w '.
Personal pronouns are placed before the name:
Orthography and phonology
Guianan Creole is largely written using the French alphabet, with only a few exceptions. 'Q' and 'X' are replaced by 'k' and 'z' respectively. 'C' is not used apart from in the diagraph, ch, where it stands for [ʃ] (the word for horse is chouval, similar to French's cheval.) Otherwise, it is replaced by 'k' when it stands for [k] (Standard French's comment (why) is written kouman) and 's', when it stands for [s]. Silent 'h' is never written, unlike in Standard French, where it remains for etymological purposes.