Seychellois Creole
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Seychellois Creole, also known as Kreol, is the lingua franca of the Seychelles, as well as being an official language with English and French, unlike Mauritian Creole, which has no official status in Mauritius.
Since independence in 1976, the government of the Seychelles has sought to develop Creole as a separate language, with its own orthography and grammar, establishing Lenstiti Kreol (l'Institut créole), the Creole Institute for this purpose.
The spelling of words in Creole has been considerably simplified compared to the original French, as demonstrated by the different translations of 'we all need to work together to build our future', in the two languages:
- Creole: Nou tou bezwen travay ansamn pou kree nou lavenir.
- French: Nous tous avons besoin de travailler ensemble a créer notre avenir.
In Creole, the definite article (derived from the French le, la and les) forms part of the word, so that 'the future' is lavenir,(as opposed to avenir, which is 'future'). The possessive is formed by adding the pronoun, so that 'our future' is nou lavenir, literally, 'we-the-future'. Similarly in the plural, les Īles Éloignés Seychelles in French ('the Outer Seychelles Islands') becomes Zil Elwanyen Sesel in Creole. Note the z in Zil, as, in French, "les Īles" is pronounced /le"zil/de:Seselwa