Creole peoples Creole peoples Creole people are ethnic groups which originated during the colonial-era from racial mixing between Europeans and non-European peoples, known as creolisation. These groups are typically descended from White Western European colonial settlers, West African slaves, Haitians and indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Creole peoples vary widely in ethnic background and mixture, and many have since developed distinct ethnic identities. The development of creole languages is attributed to, but independent of, the emergence of creole ethnic identities. The English word "creole" derives from the French "créole", which in turn came from Portuguese "crioulo", a diminutive of
Folk etymology "Hamburg" + "-er" ("thing connected with"), but understood as "ham" + "burger". The technical term "folk etymology" refers to a change in the form of a word caused by erroneous popular beliefs about its etymology. The English word is a translation of the German term "Volksetymologie", coined by Ernst Förstemann. Förstemann noted that in addition to scientific etymology based on careful study in philology, there exist scholarly but often unsystematic accounts, as well as popular accounts for the history of linguistic forms. Until academic linguists developed comparative philology and described the laws underlying sound changes, the derivation of words was