Language

The official language of Mauritius is English; administrative papers are in English, and it is also the principal vector of the education system. However, French predominates in the media, both aired and written. The French-derived Mauritian Creole, with influences from the other dialects, is widely spoken on the island and is considered as the native tongue of the country. Creole was the language used by the African slaves to communicate with the French landlords.

Hindi is also widely spoken, though restrained to the Indian community. Several other languages, including Arabic, Portuguese, Indian languages such as Urdu, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Bhojpuri, Gujarati or dialects of Chinese like Cantonese, Hakka and Mandarin are also spoken.

According to the 2000 census, the following languages are spoken in Mauritius:

• Creole 80.5%
• Bhojpuri 12.1%
• French 3.4%
• English (official; spoken by less than 1% of the population)
• Other 3.7%