Editing Forro Creole (section)

== Vocabulary ==

Although the São Tomean Creole had (and still has) a restricted contact with Portuguese (seen as a prestigious language), it did preserve a larger number of the substrate languages' elements, more than the creoles of Cape Verde. Roughly 93% of São Tomean Creole lexicon is from Portuguese and 7% of African origin. Most Forro Creole speakers also speak non-creolised Portuguese.

Although 95% of São Tomeans speak [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]] and it is the country's national language, Forro Creole is traditionally said to be spoken by 85% of the inhabitants of [[São Tomé Island]], or 81.7% of the country's population.<ref>{{cite web | first=Jacques | last=Leclerc | title=São Tomé-et-Príncipe | date=23 November 2011 | url=http://www.tlfq.ulaval.ca/axl/afrique/Sao-Tome-Principe.htm | work=L’aménagement linguistique dans le monde | language=fr | access-date=August 1, 2012 | archive-date=11 September 2012 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120911044839/http://www.tlfq.ulaval.ca/axl/afrique/Sao-Tome-Principe.htm | url-status=dead }}</ref> However, official census figures state that only 36.2%{{citation needed|date=September 2017}} of the population can speak Forro Creole, and the creole is now considered threatened.{{citation needed|date=September 2017}}