Indo-European · ISO 639-3 kri
Krio Language
Krio is an Indo-European language spoken by about 6.3 million people in 1 country. It is written in the Latin script.
Where Krio is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
Countries that speak Krio
Language family
- Indo-European
- Classical Indo-European
- Germanic
- Northwest Germanic
- West Germanic
- North Sea Germanic
- Anglo-Frisian
- Anglic
- Later Anglic
- Middle-Modern English
- Macro-English
- Guinea Coast Creole English
- West African Creole English
- Krio
Writing system
Latin script
Related languages
About the Krio language
Krio is spoken by about 6.3 million people, which makes it the 161st most spoken language in the world — just behind Southern Sotho (6.4 million) and ahead of Mewati (6.1 million). It belongs to the Indo-European language family and, more precisely, to the West African Creole English group within the Germanic branch.
Where is Krio spoken?
Krio is used in 1 country. The largest communities live in Sierra Leone (8.7 million). More than half of the population speaks it in Sierra Leone — the places where travellers will hear it everywhere.
Krio is not a national official language anywhere.
Writing system and status
Krio is written in the Latin script. It is a safe, widely transmitted language: children still learn it at home as their first language.
Its closest relatives in the same branch of the family are Nigerian Pidgin, Ghanaian Pidgin English, Cameroon Pidgin, Jamaican Creole English, Trinidadian Creole English, English and 2 more.
ISO codes: ISO 639-3 kri.
Frequently asked questions about Krio
How many people speak Krio?
Where is Krio spoken?
What language family does Krio belong to?
Is Krio an endangered language?
Data: Languages of the World dataset (MIT) — ISO 639-3, Glottolog (CC BY 4.0), Unicode CLDR, Google LinguaMeta (CC BY 4.0) and Wikidata; country lists: samayo/country-json (MIT). Speaker numbers include first- and second-language speakers where sources report them.