Guianese Creole

Here is my little love poem translated into Guianese Creole (Kréol, Guyane Creole, Guianese Creole French, Guyanais, Guyane, Patois, Patwa, Kriyòl gwiyannen, Kréyòl gwiyanè), the French-based Creole, spoken in Guiana, Brazil (Amapá), Suriname, and by the Guianese diaspora, by approximately 300,000 people.

Guianese shows of course French influences, but also Spanish, Portuguese, English, Dutch, Amerindian and African (Gbé) languages. It can be compared to the West Indian Creoles.

Generally, Guianese are bilingual with French and Creole which is the language they use mainly in private. Today with the arrival of many foreigners, Chinese, Indians, etc., Guianese also serves as a vernacular language.

In Cayenne, where the most educated people resides, Guianese is more French-speaking than in the countryside.

If French is the official language and the language of the elite, in the last years, strong desires for identity, have tended to revalorize Creole.

In the middle of the 17th century Cayenne was taken over by the French from the Dutch, and little by little through successive arrivals, settlers and African slaves settled there.

Each new wave of emigrants will be decimated by disease and climate.

The end of the 18th century saw the installation of the penal colony. The descendants of these convicts "vieux blancs" live in Cayenne and St-Laurent.

After the abolition of slavery in 1848, freed slaves set up on their own outside the Kourou area. 20 years later, a "gold rush" began, which initiated strong immigration, compared to the population at the time.

In Guiana, the Guianese who live isolated from each other practice fishing, hunting, livestock breeding and slash-and-burn cultivation.

This isolation and withdrawal into the family is compensated by meetings during religious ceremonies and mutual aid (mayouri), which brings them together to carry out certain work.

In 1947, Guiana became a French overseas department. In 1968 the Kourou space base was created.