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 other. Krio is the primary language of communication among Sierra Leoneans at home and abroad. The language is native to the Sierra Leone Creole people or Krios, (a community of about 300,000 descendants of freed slaves from the West Indies, United States and United Kingdom), and is spoken as a second language by millions of other Sierra Leoneans belonging to the country's indigenous tribes. English is Sierra Leone's official language, while Krio, despite its common use throughout the country, has no official status.

The Krio language is an offshoot of the language brought by the Nova Scotian Settlers from North America, Maroons from Jamaica, and the numerous liberated African slaves who settled in Sierra Leone.

All freed slaves—the Jamaican Maroons, African Americans, Nova Scotian Settlers, Sierra Leone Liberated Africans—influenced Krio, but the Jamaican Maroons, Nova Scotian Settlers, Igbo and Yoruba Liberated Africans were the most influential. The basic English structure of Krio is an offshoot of the English spoken by the Nova Scotians and Maroons, while some of the African words in Krio come from the Yoruba and Igbo languages spoken by the liberated Yoruba and Igbo.

Krio is distinct from Pidgin English as it is a language in its own right, with fixed grammatical structures and rules. Krio also draws extensively from other European languages, namely Portuguese and French, e.g. the Krio word gentri/gentree, which means wealth or to acquire wealth, is derived from the Old French word "gentry," and the Krio word pickin, which means child, comes from the Portuguese word "pequeno."