__NOTOC__ Afro-Seminole Creole (ASC) is a dialect of

Gullah The Gullah () are an African American ethnic group who predominantly live in the Lowcountry region of the U.S. states of Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina, within the coastal plain and the Sea Islands. Their language and cultu ...

spoken by

Black Seminoles The Black Seminoles, or Afro-Seminoles are Native American-Africans associated with the Seminole people in Florida and Oklahoma. They are mostly blood descendants of the Seminole people, free Africans, and escaped slaves, who allied with Seminole ...

in scattered communities in Oklahoma, Texas, and Northern Mexico."Creoles in Texas – 'The Afro-Seminoles'.” ''Kreol Magazine''. March 28, 2014.
Accessed April 11, 2018. Afro-Seminole Creole was first identified in 1978 by Ian Hancock, a

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Lingu ...

at the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

. Before that, no one in the academic world was aware of its existence. ASC arose when enslaved Gullah speakers from the South Carolina and Georgia coastal region, later called "Black Seminoles," escaped from slavery on rice plantations and fled into the Florida wilderness. This process began in the late 1600s, and continued into the 1830s. In Florida, the Black Seminoles built their own independent communities, but established a close partnership with the

Seminole Indians The Seminole are a Native American people who developed in Florida in the 18th century. Today, they live in Oklahoma and Florida, and comprise three federally recognized tribes: the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma, the Seminole Tribe of Florida, and ...

. That alliance helped protect both groups during the First and Second Seminole Wars. The present-day speakers of Afro-Seminole Creole live in

Seminole County, Oklahoma Seminole County is a county located in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. As of the 2010 census, the population was 25,482. Its county seat is Wewoka. Most of the county was a reservation for the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma which still retains jurisd ...

and Brackettville, Texas in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

, and in

Nacimiento de los Negros Nacimiento may refer to: Settlements *Nacimiento, Chile, a municipality in the province of Bío Bío, region of Bío Bío, Chile * Nacimiento, Spain, a municipality in the province of Almería, Andalusia, Spain * Nacimiento, California, United Stat ...

Coahuila Coahuila (), formally Coahuila de Zaragoza (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Coahuila de Zaragoza ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Coahuila de Zaragoza), is one of the 32 states of Mexico. Coahuila borders the Mexican states of N ...

Mexico Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...

. ASC is threatened with extinction as there are only about 200 native speakers today. The speakers of ASC are all descendants of the Black Seminoles who settled in

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and ...

and then, through a series of wars and other threats, were driven first to what is now Oklahoma and Northern Mexico, and later into Texas after the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government polici ...

. The speakers of ASC are all 65 years of age or older, so unless actions are soon taken, ASC will likely be extinct in one or two decades.

Notes

References

External links

*https://web.archive.org/web/20050511220455/http://www.linguasphere.org/anglo_creole.pdf American Creole English-based pidgins and creoles Languages of Mexico Languages of the United States Multiracial affairs in the United States Black Seminoles Languages of the African diaspora {{pidgincreole-lang-stub

See also

Notes

References

External links