An English-based creole that is the lingua franca of Sierra Leone — descended from the speech of freed Africans resettled in Freetown from the late 18th century.
Where it’s spoken
Krio is the first language of around 500,000 Sierra Leoneans — the Krio ethnic community concentrated around Freetown — and the second language of virtually the entire country, used in markets, public transport, and informal media. It emerged from the contact between freed Africans repatriated by the British anti-slavery campaign and the indigenous languages of Sierra Leone.
What it sounds like
Vocabulary is overwhelmingly from English with substantial input from Yoruba, Akan, Mende, Temne, and Portuguese trade pidgin. Grammar follows West African patterns: serial verb constructions, no copula in present tense, tone-marking on some lexical pairs.
How it’s written
A standardised Latin orthography developed by the Sierra Leone Krio Society uses phonemic spelling that differs significantly from English. A growing body of Krio Bible translations, news broadcasts, and Wikipedia articles has stabilised the standard.
Find more languages by letter
Krio starts with K and ends with O. Browse other languages along the same letter.
Languages that contain a letter from "Krio":