The Mauritian, a people who are multiethnic, multi-religious, multicultural and multilingual, migrated from Mauritius, an island nation in the Indian Ocean off the southeast coast of the African continent.

Mauritian are both an English-speaking and French-speaking people. Their common language is Morisyen, which is a Mauritian Creole that is a French-based. In addition to the French base of the language, Morisyen consists also of a number of words from English and from the many African and South Asian languages.

The language developed in the 18th century from contact between French colonizers and the people they enslaved, whose primary languages included Malagasy, Wolof, and a number of East African Bantu languages. The contributions of the masses of East Indian contract labourers brought into Mauritius during the second half of the 19th century also contributed to evolution of the language.

The majority adhere to Hinduism with a small minority being following by Christianity.