Chagos Archipelago - People and Language

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:

    Does it really matter what these affectionate people do—so long as they don’t do it in the streets and frighten the horses!
    Patrick, Mrs. Campbell (1865–1940)

    UG [universal grammar] may be regarded as a characterization of the genetically determined language faculty. One may think of this faculty as a ‘language acquisition device,’ an innate component of the human mind that yields a particular language through interaction with present experience, a device that converts experience into a system of knowledge attained: knowledge of one or another language.
    Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)