French Guiana Culture & Language

French is the official language of French Guiana, spoken by most residents as a first or second language, and Guianese Creole, Kreol Gwiyanè, French-based and spoken by about 50,000 people in 2006, is the lingua franca between Amerindians, Maroons, Chinese, Brazilians and Haitians. Six Amerindian languages -- Lokono, Palikur, Kali'na, Wayana, Wayampi and Emerillon -- four Maroon creoles -- Saramaka, Paramaccan, Aluku and Ndyuka -- and Hmong Njua are regional languages. Catholicism is the dominant religion, the Hmong largely Catholic too, while the Maroons and some Amerindian peoples keep their own.

The Carnival is the public culture: considered the longest in the world, it runs every Sunday afternoon from Epiphany at the start of January to Ash Wednesday, groups costumed to the year's theme parading around floats to percussion and brass. It began as the settlers' European carnival, forbidden to the enslaved, who held it clandestinely to celebrate Africa, fertility and harvest and to mock the masters; the fat days close it -- the grand parade on Fat Sunday, burlesque marriages on Fat Monday with men as brides, red devils in red and black on Mardi Gras, and she-devils in black and white burying Vaval, the carnival king, on Ash Wednesday. The tourism committee adds the Aluku games in early July, the Sanpula night at the end of that month and the Kali'na games in early December.

The kitchen brought Creole, Bushinengue and Amerindian cooking together on manioc and smoked meat and fish: awara broth at Easter, colombo at weddings, atipa in coconut milk, pimentade of fish or chicken, couac, cramanioc pudding, Creole galette. Sport was organised from 1890, when the first 14 July competition was held; Cayenne, founded in 1643, is the largest French-speaking city on the continent, with a cathedral begun in 1825 and a central square, the Place des Palmistes, laid out after the walls came down in 1810.

French is official and enough everywhere on the coast; Guianese Creole -- bonjou, mèsi, sa ou fè for how are you -- is what the market speaks, close enough to Antillean Creole for anyone who knows it; on the Maroni the Maroon languages and Sranan carry across from Suriname, Portuguese is common near the Oyapock, and English is limited to the tourist trade.