What is Guyanese Creole? Where did it come from?

In common with all Caribbean Creoles, it originated with the arrival of Christopher Columbus. The Amerindians, the people found on the New World, were overpowered by cruel plantation and mine owners. Some died because of forced labour and the rest escaped the estates and settled deep in the Amazonian forest.

Africans were kidnapped from their homeland and sold as slaves to work in the mines & on plantations to plant and harvest sugar-cane. Among the chief slave owners to dominate Guyana were the Dutch (early 1600) French (1782-1784) and the English (from 1803) Guyana became an independent Nation in 1966

After the Africans rebelled (e.g. the 1763 slave rebellion headed by Cuffy ) and the consequent abolition of slavery in 1838, Indentured labourers were tricked into coming from from China and Portugal & Calcutta, India, to work on the plantations.

The fusion of these different races produced an oral form of communication still spoken in Guyana today.

Indeed all have contributed to the Guyanese Creole in some way or another.

The Amerindians provided words like Warishi (knapsack) & names of places as Timehri, Cuyuni, Orealla, Mazaruni & so on.