Creole

Creole, term first used in the 16th century in Latin America to distinguish the offspring of European settlers from Native Americans, blacks, and later immigrant groups. It is now also used in different ways, sometimes to describe groups with mixed-race descendants in certain areas of the world. Creoles are considered an ethnic nationality rather than a racial group. In colonial America the designation originally applied to the American-born descendants of European-born settlers. In the United States, in the state of Louisiana, Creoles are the white descendants of the early French or Spanish settlers. These people have their own culture and customs and a composite language derived from the French. In Latin America the term may refer equally to people of direct Spanish extraction or to members of families whose ancestry happens to go back to the American colonial period. In the Caribbean region the word Creole is generally used to identify descendants of any European settlers.

On Réunion, near Madagascar, the Creole people are descendants of European, Malagasy, and Indo-Portuguese people, who were all the first settlers on the island and formed mixed marriages. These peoples then mixed with East African, Madagascan, Indian, Malay, Polynesian, Aboriginal, and Chinese people, who were all taken to the island as slaves. Réunionese Creoles make up the majority of the Réunion population, and have their own language: Réunion Creole French. Their culture is based on European, Malagasy, and Indian cultures, as these were the larger communities on the island.

The term creole is also used to denote a language derived from a pidgin language, but having a more complex grammar and vocabulary because it has acquired native speakers through years of use. Examples include the French-based Haitian Creole French and Tok Pisin, the creolized Melanesian Pidgin of New Guinea that is now an official language there. The speakers of a creole language are not necessarily Creole people.