Australiam Kriol - Nowadays Creole Language

A pidgin is a language that is derived from a parent language and a creole is the pidgin language that it spoken as a first language. The Australian Kriol is the creole that is spoken across Northern Australia. It is not a traditional Indigenous language but have a lot of recognition over time. The 2011 census showed that the number of Kriol speakers were around 4000 but linguists suspect that it was an under-representation. Despite the long journey that the creole had to endure including being stigmatised due to killing traditional languages, Kriol remains today.

Significant Events

Kriol was said to be an English-based creole mainly based on its lexicon. Although a word might be like an English word, its connotations and semantics are unique despite similar graphic/spelling. After knowing the origin of Kriol, it may be interesting to know how it has gained its popularity. Considering that Kriol has previously died out in all around Australia except in the Northern Territory, it has managed to be recognised by many within 50 years. In this time, it went from an unnamed creole to the language that has been used in government education, liturgy, music, interpretation and now heard daily on ABC news. It has even a language of Shakespeare. Although it is a fully functional language, Australia as a monolingual mindset fails to further promote the Kriol along with other traditional languages.

Kriol Bible Translation

The first complete edition of the Bible in Kriol language was launched on the 5th of May in 2007. The translation took over 29 years and was done by a team of native Kriol speakers. Their efforts aimed to prove the importance of the Kriol language on culture.

Dialects of Kriol and How They Came About

Different speakers in different geographic areas led to the formation of many dialects of Kriol which includes Light Walpiri, Gurindji Kriol and Belize Kriol. These dialects are obviously different mainly regarding lexical changes, but it noted that their differences are linguistically similar. There are negative social attitudes surrounding Kriol as it is a traditional language killer that came about during an unfortunate act of colonisation and forcing locals to learn a second language, also known as the Australian Kriol.

Conclusion

Kriol or Australiam Kriol - it is an English-based creole language that developed from pidgin. It was used mostly in the Sydney and Newcastle regions. It has lots similarities with English language in vocablulary, but, nevertheless Australiam Kriol has its own syntactic structure and grammar rules.