Languages in Seychelles: Creole, English & French (Plus 17 Phrases for Visitors)

In Seychelles, Creole, English and French are all official languages. In hotels, on tours and on most restaurant menus on Mahé and Praslin you can get by in English. Creole is what people speak at home: 85.1% of residents aged 3 and over who answered named it as their first language at home in the 2022 census.

Say "Bonzour" to a shopkeeper and you are already using the language most Seychellois use at home. After that, English will carry you. One Creole word is plenty, and it is a nice one.

What does the Constitution say?

Article 4 of the Constitution says: "The national languages of Seychelles shall be Creole, English and French." The clause lists the three languages together and does not rank them.

The second part of Article 4 matters in practice. A person "may use any of the national languages for any purpose", but a law can require one or more of them for a specific purpose. So the default is freedom to use any of the three, and a specific law can narrow that.

On the words "official" and "national": the Constitution's own text says "national". The national statistics office, the NBS, calls them "three official national languages" in its census report. Both words describe the same three languages, so "official languages" is a fair short label.

What do people actually speak?

Most people speak Creole at home, a smaller group speaks English, and French is rare. The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) asked everyone aged 3 and over in the 2022 census which language they speak most at home.

First main language at home	2022	2010	2002
Creole	85.1%	90.4%	91.8%
English	8.0%	5.1%	4.9%
French	0.5%	0.7%	0.8%
Everything else	6.4%	3.8%	2.5%

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Source: NBS, 2022 census main report, Table 3.3. In 2010 and 2002 the question was put to the household; in 2022 each person was asked, so the years are not perfectly comparable.

Two things stand out. French, an official language, is the first language at home for about one person in 200. And "everything else" has grown. The NBS says Gujarati, Hindi and Tamil are now among the top six home languages, because more people have come to work from the Indian subcontinent.

Among Seychellois citizens only, 93.7% speak Creole first at home and 5.2% English, says the NBS.

You may see higher figures such as 95% or 99% for Creole elsewhere. Wikipedia's "Languages of Seychelles" page gives "about 95%" without a year. The APiCS survey says Creole is "the common language of about 99% of the population", citing a 2007 source. That is a different measure from the census one. The census number is 85.1%. It counts everyone aged 3 and over who answered, citizens and non-citizens alike, and it asks about the language spoken most at home.

Second language: English wins

Ask people for their second language at home and English comes out far ahead. The NBS table (B3.1b) covers 98,952 people aged 3 and over. For 15,114 of them (15%) the answer is missing, which leaves 83,838 with an answer. Of those, 45,742 named English (54.6%), 4,146 Creole (4.9%) and 1,018 French (1.2%). Another 30,899 (36.9%) said they have no second language. The rest named Tamil or another language (1,694) or said "do not know" or refused (339).

Those groups add up to 83,838. The shares are my own sums from the NBS table. They leave out the missing answers, the same way the NBS percentages above do. Counted against all 98,952 people, English is the second language of 46%.

Praslin and La Digue

The islands you are probably visiting look like the national picture. If you are still choosing between the two, Praslin or La Digue as a base compares them. From the NBS district table (Table B3.1a), with shares worked out among people who gave a valid answer:

Area (NBS regions)	People aged 3+	Valid answers	Creole first	English first
Seychelles	98,952	87,535	85.1% (74,542)	8.0% (6,986)
Praslin	7,566	6,631	89.8% (5,956)	7.2% (475)
La Digue and Inner Islands	3,499	2,842	83.4% (2,371)	6.7% (190)

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Valid answers are people aged 3 and over minus those whose answer is missing. The percentages are counts divided by valid answers. The Praslin and La Digue shares are my calculation. They are a good guide, not an official NBS statistic. The NBS row "La Digue & Inner Islands" also covers Silhouette, North, Denis, Fregate and Bird. La Digue itself has 3,013 people aged 3 and over.

Will English get me through a holiday?

Mostly yes, as long as you stay inside the tourist system. One local travel guide, Koek, says most restaurant menus on Mahé and Praslin will handle you in English, and that hotel staff, tour operators and immigration work in English. The same guide says government signs are often in English and French.

Step outside that system and it changes. Koek says Creole is what you will hear at the Sir Selwyn Selwyn-Clarke Market in Victoria and on a local bus. It says La Digue, with its slower pace and smaller population, brings more Creole-only conversations, and that English is thinner on the outer islands. The census does not settle this. English is the first home language of 6.7% of people in La Digue and the Inner Islands, against 8.0% nationally. But Creole's share there (83.4%) is also below the national 85.1%.

My advice is simple. Use English for anything that involves money, a timetable or safety. On a bike trip around La Digue, bring a few Creole words and some patience. And greet first. Koek calls a "Bonzour" before any request "the minimum expected courtesy", and says launching straight into what you want "reads as rude, not efficient".

French is not much use for the street. Koek says it shows up in formal and legal settings and that older Seychellois may default to French in conversation.

17 Creole phrases for visitors

The respellings below are for English readers. Stress the capitals. Wikivoyage's phrasebook says to say the letter n as in English. The exception is an n after a vowel that is not followed by a vowel or another n, as in "mon" or "non". That n is a soft French-style nasal. If in doubt, listen to your host.

If I had to pick three for a first day, they would be "Bonzour", "Mersi" and "Eski ou konn koz Angle?" (phrases 1, 5 and 12). The first two are warm and cost nothing. The third is the polite way to ask for English, and it beats starting in English without a word.

Two honesty notes. First, I checked every spelling against published Seychellois Creole. My sources are the National Assembly's verbatim reports of its sittings, which are printed in Kreol. I also used two academic word lists by the linguists Michaelis and Rosalie (the World Loanword Database and APiCS). Phrases that only travel guides gave, and that I could not match there, are left out. For rows 12 to 14 the sources confirm each word, not the whole phrase. Lenstiti Kreol is the state institute for the language, so if a Seychellois friend corrects a spelling, trust them over the editorial desk behind this guide.

Second, the sounds are English-reader respellings: SeyVillas gives many, Wikivoyage gives only a few, and I filled the gaps myself.

#	Creole	Means	Say it	Spelling checked in
1	Bonzour	Hello, good morning	bon-ZOOR	National Assembly verbatim reports; Wiktionary
2	Bonswar	Good evening	bon-SWAR	National Assembly verbatim reports; Wiktionary
3	Orevwar	Goodbye	oh-rev-WAR	National Assembly verbatim reports; Wiktionary
4	Byen, mersi	Fine, thanks	byen mer-SEE	National Assembly verbatim reports ("Tre byen mersi"); APiCS (byen, "well")
5	Mersi	Thank you	mer-SEE	National Assembly verbatim reports
6	Silvouple	Please	seel-voo-PLAY	National Assembly verbatim reports; Wiktionary
7	Wi	Yes	wee	World Loanword Database
8	Non	No	non	World Loanword Database
9	Eskiz mwan	Excuse me	es-KEEZ mwan	National Assembly verbatim reports
10	Mon apel ...	My name is ...	mon a-PEL	National Assembly verbatim reports ("Mon apel" + name)
11	Mon pa konpran	I don't understand	mon pa kon-PRAN	National Assembly verbatim reports; World Loanword Database (konpran)
12	Eski ou konn koz Angle?	Do you speak English?	es-kee oo kon koz ang-LAY	Word by word: National Assembly verbatim reports ("Eski ou", "konn koze", "koz Angle"); APiCS ("konn" + verb, "know how to")
13	Konbyen sa?	How much is this?	kon-BYEN sa	Word by word: World Loanword Database (konbyen, "how much"; sa, "that")
14	Kote twalet?	Where is the toilet?	ko-TAY twa-LET	Word by word: World Loanword Database (kote, "where"; twalet, "toilet"); APiCS ("Kote ou'n ale?")
15	Ed mwan!	Help me!	ed mwan	National Assembly verbatim reports ("ed mwan"); World Loanword Database (ede, "to help")
16	Delo (also Dilo)	Water	deh-LO	World Loanword Database ("delo, dilo"); APiCS
17	Manze	Food, to eat	man-ZAY	World Loanword Database; APiCS

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Wikivoyage also lists "Alo" for hello, but I would start with "Bonzour" by day and "Bonswar" in the evening. Koek is blunt about spelling: the written Kreol you find online is "inconsistently transcribed". Its advice is to ask your accommodation host to pronounce things for you, and I agree. A host beats any phrasebook app.

I left out "How are you?". The three guides give three different phrases (Koek "Ki manyèr?", SeyVillas "Kouma ou ete?", Wikivoyage "Koma sava?"), and I could not confirm any of them as a greeting. Several other phrases have rival forms in the guides:

Meaning	Koek	SeyVillas	Wikivoyage
Where is the toilet?	not listed	Kote twalet?	Oli twalet?
How much is this?	Konbyen sa koste?	Konbyen sa i koute?	Konbyen sa?
Help!	not listed	Led!	Ed mwan!
Water	not listed	Dilo	not listed
I'm fine	not listed	Mon byen	Byen mersi
Please	not listed	Silvouple (seel-voo-pl)	Silvouple (seel-voo-play)

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For "Please" I use Wikivoyage's because it is easier to say. For water, the dictionary headword is "delo", which is why row 16 leads with it.

Phrase 12 is the one to learn first if you are shy. It is polite, and it tells people you would like to switch to English.

Is Seychellois Creole similar to French?

Partly. The words are mostly French, but it is a separate language. The linguists Michaelis and Rosalie, in the APiCS survey of Seychelles Creole, say that "over 98%" of its vocabulary can be traced to standard or dialect French. You can see it in "Bonzour", "Mersi", "Silvouple" and "Orevwar".

Some small grammar words come from French phrases: "pe" comes from "être après de/à", for example. A French speaker will recognise many words in writing. Koek says French "will help at the margins" and warns against treating Kreol as "simplified French". Use your French for reading and your Creole phrases for answering.

Where Creole gets its backing

The Constitution names Creole alongside English and French. According to the Seychelles Nation (2014), the government decided in 1981 to set up an institution for the development of Creole. It began as a section of the Ministry of Education and became a separate entity in 1987. That is Lenstiti Kreol. The dates are not settled across sources. An SBC article of 2019 says the Creole Institute at Au Cap existed "since 1986" and was replaced by an International Creole Institute in December 2014. In 2014 the Seychelles Nation reported that a Creole language committee has "the mandate to make linguistic decisions" on the language. Lenstiti Kreol carries those decisions out.

If you are in Seychelles in October, you may catch Festival Kreol, a celebration of Creole culture. The SBC says the first one was held in 1985, and that 28 October is marked as the International Day of the Creole Language.

FAQ

What language is spoken in Seychelles?

Creole, English and French are the three official languages. Creole is the first language at home for 85.1% of residents aged 3 and over who answered (2022 census). A local travel guide, Koek, says English is the language of hotels, tour operators and most restaurant menus.

Do they speak English in Seychelles?

Yes. English is an official language and the commonest second language at home. The local travel guide Koek says hotel staff, tour operators and immigration work in English, and so do most restaurant menus on Mahé and Praslin.

How do you say hello in Seychelles?

Say "Bonzour" (bon-ZOOR). It works for hello and good morning. In the evening, say "Bonswar".

Is Seychellois Creole similar to French?

Many of its words come from French: APiCS says over 98% of the vocabulary can be traced to French. It is still its own language, and Koek says French will help only "at the margins".

Do I need to speak French in Seychelles?

No. French is the first language at home for only 0.5% of residents, and visitors do not need it. It helps a little with reading signs and with picking up Creole.

Found a spelling or a fact that looks wrong? Tell us through the contact page and we will check it against the source.