Home Grown Creole Languages in the United States

[urbanguy]

Creole Languages in the United States

Here's a list of some of the creole languages spoken in the United States.

The information that I gathered about each creole is from wikipedia.

1. Virgin Islands Creole *I know its not a state but it is a part of the U.S. Damn it!

2. Hawai'i Creole

3. Gullah

4. Afro-Seminole Creole

5. Louisiana Creole French (creyol luizien) - not to be confused with Cajun/Acadian

6. Mohawk Dutch

7. Jersey Dutch, "Negro Dutch" (extinct)

8. Albany Dutch

I'm not really sure how to classify these or know if they are trully American born but it seems so.

Spanglish (inga

[urbanguy]

Here's some info about:

Jersey Dutch Creole

Jersey Dutch was a variant of the Dutch language spoken in and around Bergen and Passaic counties in New Jersey from the late 1600s until the early 20th century. It may have been a partial creole language based on Zeelandic and Flemish Dutch dialects with English and possibly some elements of Lenape. It was spoken by the descendants of Dutch settlers to New Jersey and by the mixed race people sometimes called the Jackson Whites. It was sometimes called Neger Duits - "Negro Dutch" - when spoken by mixed race people. However it should be noted there were two distinct variations of Jersey Dutch, the regional Dutch dialect that was spoken by the actual descendents of Dutchmen, and the version spoken by black slaves and people of mixed race. In the latter, there is an overall decline in inflection, apparently including a loss of past-tense verb forms. This is due to the isolation from other Dutch speakers and contact with the English. The former variation experienced a similar decline but to much less of an extent, and is not necessarily a creole language.

An example of Jersey Dutch:

En k

[AlabamaGuy2007]

Wow, that's pretty cool. I don't know if there are any like that in Alabama. I'm sure there are in the deep swamplands and bayous. Do you know of any??

[urbanguy]

^Well according to wikipedia there were French Creoles in Alabama particularly Mobile.

An excerpt: The immediate British enforcement of race codes threw the denizens of the French-derived culture into chaos. The French Creole world was noted for its laissez-faire attitude to racial matters and the stringent English codes chased some of Mobile's Creole residents westward into Louisiana.

However, one important note to keep in mind the term Creole is commonly used to refer to people that are mixed in the modern context not necessarily a creolized language.

[urbanguy]

Also somewhere along the Mobile River there was (or perhaps may still exist) a creole similar to Gullah in the Sea Islands off Georgia/South Carolina originating from descedents of African slaves that became somewhat isolated or something like that.

[davidals]

I wonder if "Spanglish" will gain recognition as a dialect, or will evolve into something entirely unique, something along the lines of the various hybrid Latin languages (like Catalan, Galician, Sardinian, Romanish, etc...) that blend Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, French and Romanian. "Spanglish" mixes a Latin and a Teutonic language, but still...

The varied dialects here in North Carolina are interesting; I don't think there's a consensus on Appalachian English's purported connection to Elizabethian English, but traveling west in NC, the accent changes dramatically when you cross the Blue Ridge.

And some of the isolated places on the coast - famously Harkers' Island (which I believe has been extensively written about) have some very distinct, localized accents unlike anything else you'll hear in the South.

[krazeeboi]

Gullah is pretty cool; I grew up with remnants of it spoken around me, largely by my grandmother and other older members of my family (on my dad's side), so I can actually make sense of a lot of it. I know a few of the words myself.

[Jerry2]

What about Cape Verdean creole? It's a dialect of Portuguese. The Boston and Providence metros have the largest populations of Cape Verdean communities in the US.

[Charlotteman]

Wikipedia has a fantastic entry on Creole/English speaking peoples. According to one entry, AAVE (African American Vernacular English) AKA "Ebonics", is a Creole type language.