San Andrés–Providencia Creole

San Andrés–Providencia Creole, or Raizal Patwah, also called Raizal Creole, is an English-based creole spoken in The Raizal Islands by the indigenous Raizal people; which is a dialect of Jamaican Patwah with notable similarities to Belizean Creole, Caymanian Creole English, and Miskito Coastal Creole. Similar to other English creoles its vocabulary originates from the English-lexifier, but it primarily uses Jamaican Patwah phonetics which includes many words and expressions from West African Kwa languages (particularly from the Twi, Ewe, and Igbo language). The language is also known as "Bende", or "San Andrés Creole", and as of (2018) the number of native speakers of Raizal Patwah is approximately 25,515.

San Andrés and Providencia Creole
Islander Creole English Raizal Creole Raizal Patwah
Native to	San Andrés and Providencia
Native speakers	25,515 (2018)
Language family	Englisch Creole Atlantic Western Jamaican Patois San Andrés and Providencia Creole
Official status
Regulated by	not regulated
Language codes
ISO 639-3	icr
Glottolog	sana1297
Linguasphere	52-ABB-ah

Criollo de la Isla de San Andrés

Characteristics

1. It marks the time. The auxiliar wen (~ben~men) marks a past simple. Future tense is marked with wi and wuda. Progressive tense is marked by de.
2. The auxiliars beg and mek before the sentence is a polite way to ask permission or asking something.
3. Other auxiliary words before the verb mark probability like maita, mos, mosi, kyan, and kuda; willingness with niid and waan; and obligation with fi, hafi and shuda
4. There is no grammatical distinction for gender.
5. Plural is marked with dem after the noun.

San Andrés–Providencia Creole is an official language in its territory of influence according to the Colombian Constitution of 1991 that guarantees the rights and protections of languages in the country. The population of the Archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina uses three languages (Creole, English and Spanish). English remained in use for liturgical purposes in Baptist churches, but the coming of satellite television and growth of foreign tourism has revived the use of English on the islands. The standard English taught in schools is British English. The presence of migrants from continental Colombia and the travel of young islanders to cities like Barranquilla, Cartagena de Indias and Bogotá for higher education has contributed to the presence of Spanish. However, the interest in preserving the Creole has become very important for locals and Colombians in general. There has been an effort to offer multilingual education in San Andrés and Providencia which includes all three languages.

See also

• Jamaican Patois
• Cayman Islands Creole English
• Bermudian Creole English
• Turks and Caicos Creole

Further reading

• Cassidy, Frederic G. (2007). Jamaica Talk: Three Hundred Years of the English Language in Jamaica. Kingston: University Press of the West Indies. ISBN 978-9-7664017-0-2.
• Cassidy, F. G., Le Page, R. B. (2009). Dictionary of Jamaican English (Second ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-5211184-0-8.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Chang, Larry (2014). Biesik Jumiekan: Introduction to Jamaican Language. Washington DC: Gnosophia Publishers (Chuu Wod imprint). ISBN 978-0-9773391-8-1.
• Bartens, Angela (2013). San Andres Creole English. In The survey of pidgin and creole languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-1996914-0-1.
• Washabaugh, William (1983). The Off-shore Island Creoles: Providencia, San Andres and the Caymans". In Central American English. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISBN 3-87276-295-8.

External links

• New Testament books translated into Creole
• San Andres Creole English