This book offers a comprehensive, holistic, and systematic description and analysis of the language, culture, and traditions of the Sierra Leone Krio people. Through this multifaceted approach, the authors bring significant new insights into the history and the establishment of Krio society, a better understanding of the syntactic structures and semantic elements in the Krio language, and greater recognition, use, and role of oral traditions in the everyday lives of the people. The Krio folktales, parables, and riddles presented in the book represent the centuries’ old West African wisdom and communal lessons for young and old.

The authors celebrate Krio creativity as reflected in their fashion, music, and poetry. Featured here are some previously unpublished Krio poems, as well as Jamaican Patois poems that have been translated for the first time in Krio and English. These latter poems reveal the similarities in the themes, social commentary, and African continuities witnessed across the diaspora.

Refuting the claims that the linguistic foundation of Krio is English, the authors provide concrete evidence that its underlying structure of Krio is based in languages belonging to the Kwa language family, represented by Yoruba, Igbo, and Akan. Unique in our analysis of Krio language is the demonstration of substantive linguistic contributions from at least one indigenous local language, that being Temne, and opens up a whole new area for future research.