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, Senegal and The Gambia. It is also called by its native speakers as guinensi, kriyol, or portuguis.

Guinea-Bissau Creole
Kiriol, Crioulo
guinensi, kriyol, kiriol, purtuguis 'kriolo'
Native toGuinea-Bissau, Senegal, The Gambia
Native speakers
L1: 350,000 (2013–2022)
L2: 1.5 million (2013–2022)
Portuguese Creole
  • Afro-Portuguese Creole
    • Upper Guinea Creole
      • Guinea-Bissau Creole
Language codes
ISO 639-3pov
Glottologuppe1455
Linguasphere51-AAC-ab

Guinea-Bissau Creole is spoken as a native tongue by 250,000 Bissau-Guineans and as a second language by 1,000,000.

A variant of Guinea-Bissau Creole is also spoken in southern Senegal, mainly in the region of Casamance, a former Portuguese colony, which is known as Portuguis Creole or Casamance Creole. Creole is the majority language of the inhabitants of the Casamance region and is used as a language of commerce.

Standard Portuguese is the official language of Guinea-Bissau, but Guinea-Bissau Creole is the language of trade, informal literature and entertainment. It is not used in either news media, parliament, public services or educational programming.

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