from the United Kingdom in 1961, writers and educators began promoting its use. In the 1960s, Thomas Decker translated some of Shakespeare's plays into Krio, and composed original poetry in the language. In the 1980s, the New Testament was translated into Krio. Beginning with the involvement of Lutheran Bible Translators, Krio-language translations of the New Testament and Old Testament were published in 1986 and 2013. While English is Sierra Leone's official language, the Ministry of Education began using Krio as the medium of instruction in some primary schools in Freetown in the 1990s. Radio stations now broadcast a wide variety of programs in Krio. Sierra Leonean politicians also routinely give public speeches in the language. Classification Krio is an English-based creole from which descend Nigerian Pidgin English and Cameroonian Pidgin English and Pichinglis. It is also similar to English-based creole languages spoken in the Americas, especially the Gullah language, Jamaican Patois (Jamaican Creole), and Bajan Creole, but it has its own distinctive character. It also shares some linguistic similarities with non-English creoles, such as the French-based creole languages in the Caribbean. Phonology Krio contains seven monophthongs in its inventory of vowels, all of which can be nasalized. Most nasal vowels occur in words derived from English, in cases where an oral vowel precedes a nasal consonant. The nasal consonant is deleted and the vowel is nasalized. Vowels Krio has three diphthongs: /ai/, /au/, and /ɔi/. Consonants There are 24 phonemes in the consonant inventory of Krio. Consonant cluster reduction is a common process in phonology. It is typically applied to lexical items in English containing two or more consonants in a row including an initial s. Some examples include: Replacing a stop for a fricative, known as stopping substitution, is also common in words of English origin. Some examples include: There is also evidence of the influence of West African languages in the presence of the labiovelar plosives /kp/ and /gb/, as in: Krio is a tonal language and makes contrastive use of tone in both African and English words. Examples of minimal pairs of words distinguished by tone patterns are: Grammar The suffix "-dèm" is used to mark the plural, as well as the genitive plural e.g. "uman" ("woman"). Verbs Verbs do not conjugate according to person or number, but reflect their tense. Tense, aspect and mood are marked by one or more tense or aspect markers. The tense