Kreol Seselwa

Kreol Seselwa is one of the three national languages of Seychelles, alongside English and French, and it is the mother tongue of about 94 percent of the population. It is the first language of the nation and the truest carrier of who we are.

Where it came from

Kreol was born the moment the islands were settled in 1770, when French planters, enslaved Africans and Indian labourers had to find one tongue they could share. Its grammar and structure are African in shape, its vocabulary mostly French in origin, reworked and simplified into something entirely new and entirely Seselwa. For two centuries it was the language of the yard and the kitchen, spoken but rarely written, looked down on beside French and English.

How it became official

After independence, Seychelles did something rare. It lifted its Creole up. In 1981 Kreol Seselwa was given a standard written form and made a national language, taught in schools and used in the National Assembly. Lenstiti Kreol Sesel, the Creole Institute, was founded to protect and develop it, and every October the nation celebrates it at Festival Kreol. Seychelles is one of very few places on earth to make its Creole a language of government and education.

How it works

Kreol is written as it sounds, with a consistent phonetic spelling, which makes it far easier to read than French once you know the sounds. There are no silent letters and little of French's grammatical baggage. "I love you" is mon kontan ou. "How are you" is ki mannyer. The word for home, the yard where the family gathers, is lakour.

Keep it alive

Language is the first thing a diaspora loses, and it goes in a single quiet generation. Our Kreol corner is the phrasebook, with the core words and their pronunciation, and our guide to raising children in Kreol abroad is the how-to. Say the words at your table tonight. That is where a language lives or dies.