noun / adjective
creole
KREE-ohl/ˈkriːəʊl/
A stable language developed through contact among different languages.
She records a greeting in Haitian Creole on her phone.
Etymology
French créole named a locally born person whose people originated elsewhere. Its later application to languages shifted the term from naming people to naming speech varieties associated with them.
In context
They often form when there's no lingua franca and yet people have the need to communicate. So, these languages came together a lot on plantations. Hawaiian creole, for example.
More examples
- Several creoles draw much of their vocabulary from French.
- The class compares creole grammar with English grammar.
- She writes poems in the creole she grew up speaking.
Forms
creole · creoles
creolization noun — The process by which a creole develops.