People and Language
The islanders were known as the Ilois (one French Creole word for "islanders") and they numbered about 1,000. They were of mixed African, South Indian and Malay descent and lived very simple, spartan lives in their isolated archipelago. Few remains of their culture have been left, although their language is still spoken by some of their descendants in Mauritius and the UK.
The inhabitants of Chagos were speaking Chagossian Creole, also known as Ilois creole, a French Creole which has not been properly researched from the linguistic point of view.
The island names are a striking combination of Portuguese, Dutch, French, English and Creole names.
Read more about this topic: Chagos Archipelago
Famous quotes containing the words people and/or language:
“In this nadir of poetic repute, when the only verse that most people read from one year’s end to the next is what appears on greetings cards, it is well for us to stop and consider our poets.... Poets are the leaven in the lump of civilization.”
—Elizabeth Janeway (b. 1913)
“For all symbols are fluxional; all language is vehicular and transitive, and is good, as ferries and horses are, for conveyance, not as farms and houses are, for homestead.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)