creole
pronunciation
How to pronounce creole in British English:
UK [ˈkriːəʊl]
How to pronounce creole in American English:
US [ ˈkriːoʊl]
-
- Noun:
- a mother tongue that originates from contact between two languages
Word Origin
- creole
- creole: see creature
- creole (n.)
- c. 1600, from French créole (17c.), from Spanish criollo "person native to a locality," from Portuguese crioulo, diminutive of cria "person (especially a servant) raised in one's house," from criar "to raise or bring up," from Latin creare "to produce, create" (see create). The exact sense varies with local use. Originally with no connotation of color or race; Fowler (1926) writes: "Creole does not imply mixture of race, but denotes a person either of European or (now rarely) of negro descent born and naturalized in certain West Indian and American countries." In U.S. use, applied to descendants of French and Spanish settlers in Louisiana from at least 1792. Of languages, from 1879. As an adjective, from 1748.
Example
- 1. Good times food and folks soul food cookbook creole .
- 2. Are you nuts ? What do you think I 'm running ? A creole restaurant ?
- 3. I heard that maybelle 's little creole came home safely .
- 4. Belize now has more native speakers of spanish than of english or its lilting cousin , belizean creole .
- 5. Carnegie mellon university instantly released its haitian creole spoken and text data , and a network of volunteer developers produced a rough-and-ready machine translation system for haitian creole in little more than a long weekend .