French Guianese Creole

French Guianese Creole is a French-based creole language spoken in French Guiana, and to a lesser degree, in Suriname and Brazil. It resembles Antillean Creole, but there are some lexical and grammatical differences between them. Antilleans can generally understand French Guianese Creole, though there may be some instances of confusion. The differences consist of more French and Brazilian Portuguese influences. There are also words of Amerindian and African origin. There are French Guianese communities in Suriname and Brazil who continue to speak the language.
It should not be confused with the Guyanese Creole language, based on English, spoken in nearby Guyana.

History

French Guianese Creole was a language spoken between slaves and settlers. But the conditions of French Guianese Creole's constitution were quite different from the Creole of the West Indies, on the one hand because of the conflicts between French, English, Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish, and French dialects such as the Caen have greatly influenced French Guianese Creole, which has made it significantly different from the Creoles of Martinique, Haiti, St. Lucia and Guadeloupe.
There are, therefore, in French Guianese Creole many words in common with the Creoles of the West Indies. However, a number of words differentiate them significantly.
In addition, in French Guiana, the letter 'r' is mostly preserved in onset position, whereas in the West Indies the pronunciation of 'r' tends rather to approximate the semi-vowel /w/.
Possessive determiners are placed before the noun:

In French	In French Guianese Creole	In English
ma maison	mo kaz	my house
leurs enfants	yé timoun	their children
sa femme	so fanm/So madanm	his wife

Orthography and phonology

French Guianese Creole is largely written using the French alphabet, with only a few exceptions. 'Q' and 'X' are replaced by 'k' and 'z' respectively. 'C' is not used apart from in the digraph, ch, where it stands for . Otherwise, it is replaced by 'k' when it stands for and 's', when it stands for. Silent 'h' is never written, unlike in Standard French, where it remains for etymological reasons. The diphthong 'OU' is replaced by 'w' when it stands for. The diphthong 'OI' is replaced by 'we', but by 'o' in the words "mo" and "to".

Examples

French Guianese Creole	Metropolitan French	English
Bonswè	Bonsoir	Good evening
Souplé	S'il vous plaît	Please
Mèsi	Merci	Thank you
Mo	Moi, me, je	Me, I
To	Toi, te, tu	You
I, L, Li	Lui, le, la	He, She, Him, Her, It
Roun	Un, une	One
Eskizé mo	Excusez-moi	Excuse me, pardon me
Lapli ka tonbé	Il pleut	It's raining
Jod-la a roun bèl jou	Aujourd'hui, il fait beau	Today is a beautiful day
A kouman to fika?	ça va?	How are you?
Mari a mo manman	Marie est ma mère	Marie is my mother
Rodolf a to frè	Rodolphe est ton frère	Rudolph is your brother
I ka alé laplaj	Il va à la plage	He's going to the beach
Mo pa mélé	Je m'en moque	I don't care