Five facts about the language spoken in Guyana are: more than one language is spoken here, Urdu is spoken, English is official, British English is taught in schools, and many of its citizens speak Guyanese Creole. Guyana, the land of many waters, as it is sometimes called, is located in South America. It is bordered by Venezuela on the left, Suriname on the right, Brazil at the bottom, and the Atlantic Ocean at the top. This country is 83,000 square miles and its citizens are called Guyanese.
More than one
Native American, African, Portuguese, East Indian, and Chinese are some of the races of people who live in this beautiful country. So it should come as no surprise to hear, or in this case, read that more than one language is spoken here. English, Guyanese Creole, Urdu, Wai-Wai, Spanish and Chinese dialects are some of the languages spoken here. In fact, there are some citizens who do not speak or understand the official language of the country. To get first hand experience of this last statement, if you ever visit here take a walk through Stabroek Market, talk to some of the vendors and you may get some experience of this.
urdu
Urdu, according to the Collins English Dictionary and Thesaurus, belongs to the Indic branch of the Indo-European language family and is closely related to Hindi. This is also the national language of Pakistan and is also spoken in Bangladesh, Nepal, Bahrain, and India. Although Urdu is “dying” among the people here, those who can speak it do so with great enthusiasm.
English is official
English is the official language of this republican land. The country is also the only English-speaking country in South America. One of the reasons for the fascination with this fact is that its neighboring countries are either Spanish-speaking or French-speaking.
British English
British English is taught in schools here, and this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise because the country was once ruled by Great Britain. The country was once called British Guiana.
Creole
Since English is taught in this country of diversity, Guyanese Creole, which is widely spoken, is based on English. However, as you travel from one area to the next, you will encounter subdialects in each area. The dialect of the people of Georgetown, the nation’s capital, is slightly different from that of the East Coast. This is possibly due to influences from the West African, Indian and other languages spoken by the ancestors of this land.
An example of Creole spoken here, in the form of a proverb is: if your eye does not see, your mouth must not speak, (if your eyes have not seen it, you must not speak of it) that is, you must see something for yourself before to talk about anything.
