The

official language An official language is defined by the Cambridge English Dictionary as, "the language or one of the languages that is accepted by a country's government, is taught in schools, used in the courts of law, etc." Depending on the decree, establishmen ...

Guinea-Bissau Guinea-Bissau, officially the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, is a country in West Africa that covers with an estimated population of 2,026,778. It borders Senegal to Guinea-Bissau–Senegal border, its north and Guinea to Guinea–Guinea-Bissau b ...

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

, which was spoken by 32.1% of the population according to the 2009 census. It is the language of instruction in schools, the language of literary production, the written press, legislation and administration. The local

lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, link language or language of wider communication (LWC), is a Natural language, language systematically used to make co ...

, spoken by 90.4% according to the same census, is a

creole language A creole language, or simply creole, is a stable form of contact language that develops from the process of different languages simplifying and mixing into a new form (often a pidgin), and then that form expanding and elaborating into a full-fl ...

on a Portuguese basis which officially is called

Guinea-Bissau Creole Guinea-Bissau Creole, also known as Kiriol or Crioulo, is a creole language whose lexicon derives mostly from Portuguese. It is spoken in Guinea Bissau, Cape Verde, Senegal and The Gambia. It is also called by its native speakers as , , or . G ...

but colloquially is called ''Crioulo'' or ''Kiriol''. Several

indigenous Indigenous may refer to: *Indigenous peoples *Indigenous (ecology) In biogeography, a native species is indigenous to a given region or ecosystem if its presence in that region is the result of only local natural evolution (though often populari ...

African languages The number of languages natively spoken in Africa is variously estimated (depending on the delineation of language vs. dialect) at between 1,250 and 2,100, and by some counts at over 3,000. Nigeria alone has over 500 languages (according to SI ...

are spoken by about half of the population, much more in rural than in urban settings.

French French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...

is taught in schools as

foreign language A foreign language is a language that is not an official language of, nor typically spoken in, a specific country. Native speakers from that country usually need to acquire it through conscious learning, such as through language lessons at schoo ...

, because Guinea-Bissau is surrounded by French-speaking countries and is a full member of the

Francophonie The Francophonie or Francophone world is the whole body of people and organisations around the world who use the French language regularly for private or public purposes. The term was coined by Onésime Reclus in 1880 and became important a ...

as well as the Lusophone CPLP. English is also taught but to a lesser degree than French.

Guinea-Bissau Creole

In 1983, 44% of Guineans spoke

, in 1995 it was reported that Creole was spoken by 69% of the population, and in 2009 by 90.4%. Guinea-Bissau Creole is in the process of

decreolization Decreolization is a postulated phenomenon whereby over time a creole language reconverges with the lexifier from which it originally derived. The notion has attracted criticism from linguists who argue there is little theoretical or empirical b ...

. As summary of his 2021 dissertation, João Fernando Cá states: Guinea-Bissau Creole "is in a process of continuous change as the society where it is spoken changes, detaching itself from its old modality and getting closer and closer to its base language, Portuguese, which gave way to the so-called Modern Guinean reole languagewhich is more present in the speech of the young and literate people."João Fernando Cá: ''Aspectos linguísticos do Guineense: Reflexões acerca de uma língua, pages 95/96'', 2021.
/ref> Guinea-Bissau Creole is closely related to

Cape Verdean Creole Cape Verdean Creole is a Portuguese-based creole languages, Portuguese-based creole language spoken on the islands of Cape Verde. It is the native creole language of virtually all Cape Verdeans and is used as a second language by the Cape Verd ...

and the process of decreolization that occurs in

Cape Verde Cape Verde or Cabo Verde, officially the Republic of Cabo Verde, is an island country and archipelagic state of West Africa in the central Atlantic Ocean, consisting of ten volcanic islands with a combined land area of about . These islands ...

in many aspects is similar the same process in Guinea-Bissau.

Native languages

Native languages include Balanta,

Fula Fula may refer to: *Fula people (or Fulani, Fulɓe) *Fula language (or Pulaar, Fulfulde, Fulani) **The Fula variety known as the Pulaar language **The Fula variety known as the Pular language **The Fula variety known as Maasina Fulfulde *Fula alpha ...

, Mandjak,

Mandinka Mandinka, Mandika, Mandinkha, Mandinko, or Mandingo may refer to: Media * Mandingo (novel), ''Mandingo'' (novel), a bestselling novel published in 1957 * Mandingo (film), ''Mandingo'' (film), a 1975 film based on the eponymous 1957 novel * ''Man ...

, Jola, and Papel. The number of speakers of these languages are indicated by the table on the right.

References

External links

Ethnologue.com report on languages of Guinea-Bissau
{{Africa in topic, Languages of

Guinea-Bissau Creole

Native languages

See also

References

Further reading

External links