Sea Island Creole English
A language of United States
| Population | 250,000 (2000). 7,000 to 10,000 monolinguals. 10,000 in New York City (Holm 1989). Ethnic population: 250,000. |
| Region | Coastal region from Jacksonville, North Carolina to Jacksonville, Florida; Sea Islands off Georgia coast; New York City, Detroit. |
| Language map |
Southeastern United States of America |
| Alternate names | Geechee, Gullah |
| Dialects | Intelligibility with other English-based creoles is undetermined. Similar to Bahamas Creole English [bah] and Afro-Seminole [afs]. Lexical similarity: 90% with Afro-Seminole [afs]. |
| Classification | Creole, English based, Atlantic, Eastern, Northern |
| Language use | Vigorous. Barely understandable with Standard English. Government bilingual education program begun. |
| Language development | Literacy rate in L1: 1%–5%. Literacy rate in L2: 75%–100%. Dictionary. NT: 2005. |
| Writing system | Latin script. |
| Comments | Linguistic influences from Fula [fub], Mende [men], upper Guinea coast, Gambia River area (Hancock 1987). Agriculturalists: rice, cotton. |
Entries from the SIL Bibliography about this language:
Academic Publications
FRANK, David B., author. 2007. "Three irregular verbs in Gullah."
Ethnologue: Web |
Ethnologue: Print |
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Bibliography data last updated: April-2012
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