Papiamento

Papiamento (or Papiamentu) is the most widely spoken language on the Caribbean ABC islands, having the official status on the islands of Aruba and Curaçao. The language is also recognized on Bonaire by the Dutch government.^[1]

Papiamento is a creole language derived from African Languages and either Portuguese^[2] or Spanish, with some influences from American Indian, English, and Dutch.^{[3] [4]} Papiamento has two main dialects: Papiamento, spoken primarily on Aruba; and Papiamentu, spoken primarily on Bonaire and Curaçao.

History

The historical origins of Papiamento are still not very well known. It is disputed whether Papiamento originated from Portuguese or from Spanish. A summary of the century-long debate on Papiamento's origins is provided in Jacobs (2009a).^[5]

Historical constraints, core vocabulary and grammatical features that Papiamento shares with Cape Verdean Creole suggest that the basic ingredients are Portuguese, and that other influences occurred at a later time (17th and 18th century, respectively). The name of the language itself comes from papear ("to chat", "to talk"), a word present in Portuguese and colloquial Spanish; compare with Papiá Kristang ("Christian talk"), a Portuguese-based creole of Malaysia and Singapore, and the Cape Verdean Creole word papiâ ("to talk"), or to Caribbean (Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Cuba) "papiar" - to talk excessively (but also, "to eat": "papar" is Portuguese kid term for "to eat"). Spain claimed dominion over the islands in the 15th century, but made little use of them. In 1634, the Dutch West India Company (WIC) took possession of the islands, deporting most of the small remaining Arawak and Spanish population to the continent, and turned them into the hub of the Dutch slave trade between Africa and the Caribbean.

The first evidence of widespread use of Papiamento in Aruba can be seen though the Curaçao official documents in the early 18th century. In the 19th century, most materials in the islands were written in Papiamento including Roman Catholic schoolbooks and hymnals. The first Papiamento newspaper was published in 1871 and titled "Civilisado" (The Civilizer). "Civilizado" is Spanish and Portuguese for "civilized" but can also be understood as a suppressed final "r" in the word "Civilizador" (Civilizer).

An outline of the competing theories is provided below.

Local development theory

There are various local development theories. One such theory proposes that Papiamento developed in the Caribbean from an original Portuguese-African pidgin used for communication between African slaves and Portuguese slavetraders, with later Dutch and Spanish (and even some Aruac) influences.

The Judaeo-Portuguese population of the ABC islands increased substantially after 1654, when the Portuguese recovered the Dutch-held territories in Northeast Brazil – causing most of the Portuguese-speaking Jews in those lands to flee from religious persecution. The precise role of Sephardic Jews in the early development is unclear, but it is certain that Jews play a prominent role in the later development of Papiamento. Many early residents of Curaçao were Sephardic Jews either from Portugal, Spain, or Portuguese Brazil. Therefore, it can be assumed that Judaeo-Spanish was brought to the island of Curaçao, where it gradually spread to other parts of the community. As the Jewish community became the prime merchants and traders in the area, business and everyday trading was conducted in Papiamento with some Ladino influences. While various nations owned the island and official languages changed with ownership, Papiamento became the constant language of the residents.

European and African origin theory

There is the fact that Peter Stuyvesant first was appointed in Brazil, before being appointed in Curaçao. With him he brought Indians, soldiers, etc. from Brazil not only to Curaçao but also to "New Netherland". In Stuyvesant's Resolution Book while he was in charge of the ABC islands, there is document # 4b in the Curaçao Papers, presenting the multi-ethnic makeup of the garrison and the use of local Indians as cowboys: "... .whereas the number of Indians, together with those of Aruba and Bonnairo, have increased here by half, and we have learned that they frequently ride ..." Surely they communicated with each other in 'papiamento' a language originating since the first Europeans began to arrive on these islands under Ojeda, Juan de Ampues, Bejarano and mixing with the natives. Stuyvesant also took some Esopus Indians captives and brought them as slaves to Curaçao. There was little Dutch government activity in the management of DWI because during the period 1568-1648, they were actively fighting for their independence and were not in a position to also manage their colonies.

A more recent theory supposedly holds that the origins of Papiamento lie in the Afro-Portuguese creoles that arose almost a century earlier, in the west coast of Africa and in the Cape Verde islands. From the 16th to the late 17th century, most of the slaves taken to the Caribbean came from Portuguese trading posts ("factories") in those regions. Around those ports there developed several Portuguese-African pidgins and creoles, such as Guinea-Bissau Creole, Mina, Cape Verdean Creole, Angolar, and Guene. The latter bears strong resemblances to Papiamento. According to this theory, Papiamento was derived from those pre-existing pidgins/creoles, especially Guene, which were brought to the ABC islands by slaves and/or traders from Cape Verde and West Africa.

Some specifically claim that the Afro-Portuguese mother language of Papiamentu arose from a mixture of the Mina pidgin/creole (a mixture of Cape Verdean pidgin/creole with Twi) and the Angolar creole (derived from languages of Angola and Congo). Proponents of this theory of Papiamento contend that it can easily be compared and linked with other Portuguese creoles, especially the African ones (namely Forro, Guinea-Bissau Creole, and the Cape Verdean Creole). For instance, Compare mi ("I" in Cape Verdean Creole and Papiamento) or bo (meaning you in both creoles). Mi is from the Portuguese mim (pronounced [mĩ]) "me", and bo is from Portuguese vós "you".^[6] The use of "b" instead of "v" is very common in the African Portuguese Creoles (probably deriving from the pronunciation of Portuguese settlers in Africa, numerous from the North of Portugal rural areas).

Papiamento is, in some degree, intelligible with Cape Verdean creoles and could be explained by the immigration of Portuguese Sephardic Jews from Cape Verde to these Caribbean islands, although this same fact could also be used by dissenters to explain a later Portuguese influence on an already existing Spanish-based creole.^[7]

Another comparison is the use of the verb ta and taba ta from vernacular Portuguese tá (an aphesis of estar, "to be" or está, "it is") with verbs where Portuguese does and with others where it does not use it: "Mi ta + verb" or "Mi taba ta + verb", also the rule in the São Vicente Creole and other Barlavento Cape Verdean Creoles . These issues can also be seen in other Portuguese Creoles (Martinus 1996; see also Fouse 2002 and McWhorter 2000), but some are also found in colloquial Spanish.

Linguistic and historical ties with Upper Guinea Portuguese Creole

Current research on the origins of Papiamentu focuses specifically on the linguistic and historical relationships between Papiamentu and Upper Guinea Portuguese Creole as spoken on the Santiago island of Cape Verde and in Guinea-Bissau and Casamance. Elaborating on comparisons done by Martinus (1996) and Quint (2000),^[8] Jacobs (2008,^[9] 2009a, 2009b^[10]) defends the hypothesis that Papiamentu is a relexified offshoot of an early Upper Guinea Portuguese Creole variety, transferred from Senegambia to Curaçao in the second half of the 17th century, a period in which the Dutch controlled the harbour of Gorée, just below the tip of the Cape Verde Peninsula. On Curaçao, this variety, better known as Papiamentu, underwent internal changes as well as contact-induced changes at all levels of the grammar (though particularly in the lexicon) due to contact with Spanish and, to a lesser extent, Dutch as well as with a variety of Kwa and Bantu languages. These changes notwithstanding, the morpho-syntactic framework of Papiamentu is still remarkably close to that of the Upper Guinea Creoles of Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau/Casamance.

Present status

Many Papiamento speakers are multilingual and are also able to speak Dutch, English and Spanish. In the Netherlands Antilles, Papiamentu was made an official language on March 7, 2007.^[11] After its dissolution, the language's official status was confirmed in the Caribbean Netherlands,^[12] until January 1, 2011; since then it has been recognised as a language on Bonaire only.^[1]

Papiamento is also spoken in the Netherlands and on the other Dutch Caribbean islands of St. Maarten, Saba and Sint Eustatius by immigrants from Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao.

Venezuelan Spanish and American English are constant influences today. Code-switching and lexical borrowing between Papiamentu, Spanish, Dutch and English among native speakers is common. This is perceived as a threat to the further development of Papiamento due to a language ideology that is committed to preserving the authentic African or Creole "feel" of Papiamento.

Dialects

Papiamento has two main dialects: Papiamento in Aruba and Papiamentu in Curaçao and Bonaire. Although the Papiamentu in Curaçao and Bonaire are largely the same, there are still minor differences.

Spoken (Aruban) Papiamento sounds much more Spanish. The most apparent difference between the two dialects is given away in the name difference. Whereas Curaçao and Bonaire opted for a phonologically based spelling, Aruba uses an etymologically based spelling. Many words in Aruba end with "o" while that same word ends with "u" in Curaçao and Bonaire. And even on Curaçao, the use of the u-ending is still more pronounced among the Sephardic Jewish population. Similary, there is also a difference between the usage of "k" in Curaçao and Bonaire and "c" in Aruba.

For example:

Furthermore, there is also an intonation and lexical difference between Papiamento and Papiamentu.^[13]

Phonology

Vowels and diphthongs

Most Papiamento vowels are based on Ibero-Romance vowels, but some are also based on Dutch vowels like : ee /eː/, ui /œy/, ie /i/, oe /u/, ij/ei /ɛi/, oo /oː/, and aa /aː/.

Papiamento has the following nine vowels.^[14] The orthography (writing system) of Curaçao has one symbol for each vowel.

There are dialects that exist in the island itself. An example is the Aruban word, "dolor" ("pain"), which is the same in Curaçao's version, but written differently. The R is silent in certain parts of the island. It is also written without the R.

In addition to the vowels listed above, schwa also occurs in Papiamento. The letter e is pronounced as schwa in the final unstressed syllables of words such as agradabel and komader.^[15] Other vowels in unstressed syllables can become somewhat centralized (schwa-like) in rapid casual speech.

Stress and tone

Papiamento is one of only two languages worldwide that distinguish both stress and tone and is the only language in the world known to use both stress and prosodic accent.

Polysyllabic words that end in vowels are stressed on the next-to-last syllable; most words ending in consonants are stressed on the final syllable. There are exceptions. When a word deviates from these rules, the stressed vowel should be indicated by an acute accent mark. The accent marks are often omitted in casual writing.^[16]

Papiamento words have distinct tone patterns. According to recent linguistic research, there are two classes of words: those that typically have rising pitch on the stressed syllable, and those that typically have falling pitch on the stressed syllable.^[17] The latter category includes most of the two-syllable verbs in the language. Any given word's tone contours may change depending on discursive factors such as whether the sentence is affirmative, interrogative, or imperative.^[18]

Altering tone in Papiamento can distinguish meaning and grammatical function: compare noun 'para' (PA-ra: bird) with verb 'para' (pa-RA:stand or stop)

Independently from tone, stress can also be altered: compare 'pa-ra' (stand or stop) with 'pa-ra' (stopped or standing)

Papiamento/u uses prosodic accent. Tone (with stress) is largely dependent on the grammatical function of the word in sentence. Compare:

The following are the grammatical rules of Papiamentu intonation:

-Verbs usually have rising tone; a following adverb receives high intonation (ex. 'bira RONT:' turn around).

-Nouns (substantives) and adjectives usually have falling tone, a following adjective receives low intonation (ex. 'PA-lu haltu:' tall tree).

-In words of more than three syllables, grammatical tone or accent will fall on the last stressed syllable. The first stressed syllable receives the opposite tone for contrast: compare noun 'kini-kini' (kini-KI-ni): falcon with adverb 'poko-poko' (PO-ko-poko): slowly.

-An adverb has rising tone, so a following adjective receives high tone (ex. 'masha BON' very good).

!!! - The adverbs 'bon' (good) and 'mal' (bad), even though they are adjectives, in grammar will always have adverbial, rising tone character (ex. 'bon ha-SI:' well-done). They will always behave like adverbs, even when they qualify nouns (ex. 'bon DI-a:' good day). They behave like adverbs even when doubled for emphasis ('bon-BON:' very good).

(Note: in all above examples, primary stress remains on the second word, while secondary stress remains on the first word, independently of tone changes. It is thus more accurate to transcribe 'PA-lu hal-tu' and 'bira RONT', with bold typing indicating stress and CAPITAL LETTERS indicating high tone syllables. Unstressed syllables' tone is dependent on contact syllables.)

-The particle of negation 'no' always receives rising tone: the following verb is inevitably raised in pitch: compare 'mi ta PA-pia' (I speak) and 'mi no TA PA-pia' (I do not speak). This negating pitch-raise is crucial and is retained even after contraction of the particle in informal speech: 'mi'n TA papia' ("I don't speak")

It is theorised that the unusual presence of both stress and tone in Papiamentu is an inheritance of African languages (which use tone) and Portuguese (which has stress)

Grammar

Vocabulary

Most of the vocabulary is derived from Spanish and Portuguese and most of the time the real origin is unknown due to the great similarity between the two Iberian languages and the adaptations required by Papiamentu. A 100-Swadesh List of Papiamentu can be found online^[19] Linguistic studies have shown that roughly two thirds of the words in Papiamentu's present vocabulary are of Iberian origin, a quarter are of Dutch origin,and some of Native American origin and the rest come from other tongues. A recent study by Buurt & Joubert inventarised several hundred words of indigenous Arawak origins^[20]

Examples of words of Iberian and Roman, Latin origin, which are impossible to label as either Portuguese or Spanish:

• por fabor/sea asina di = please - Spanish/Portuguese, por favor
• señora = mrs, madam - Spanish, señora; 'Portuguese, senhora;
• kuá? = which? Spanish, cuál?; Portuguese, qual?;
• Kuantu? = how much? - Spanish, ¿cuánto?; Portuguese, quanto?;

While the presence of word-final /u/ can easily be traced to Portuguese, the diphthongization of some vowels is characteristic of Spanish. The use of /b/ (rather than /v/) is difficult to interpret; although the two are separate phonemes in standard Portuguese, they merge in the dialects of northern Portugal, just like they do in Spanish. Also, a sound-shift could have occurred in the direction of Spanish, whose influence on Papiamento came later than that of Portuguese.

Other words can have dual origin, and certainly dual influence. For instance: subrino (nephew): sobrinho in Portuguese, sobrino in Spanish. The pronunciation of "o" as /u/ is traceable to Portuguese, while the use of "n" instead of "nh" (IPA /ɲ/) in the ending "-no", relates to Spanish.

Portuguese origin words:

• barbulet = butterfly - Portuguese, borboleta;
• sapatu = shoe - Spanish, zapato; Portuguese, sapato;
• kachó = dog - Spanish, cachorro; (puppy); Portuguese, cachorro (dog or puppy);
• bisiña = neighbour - Spanish, vecino, vecina; Portuguese, vizinho, vizinha;
• galiña = chicken(hen) - Spanish, gallina; Portuguese, galinha;
• gai = rooster - Spanish, gallo; Portuguese, galo

Spanish origin words:

• siudat (siudatnan) = city - Spanish, ciudad; Portuguese, cidade
• sombre/sinkuri = hat - Spanish, sombrero; Portuguese, chapéu
• kashon/karson = trousers - Spanish, pantalon or calzon/es; Portuguese, calção
• hòmber = man - Spanish, hombre; Portuguese, homem

Dutch origin words:

• apel/aplo = apple - Dutch, appel
• blou = blue - Dutch, blauw
• buki = book - Dutch, boekje
• lesa = to read - Dutch, lezen

English origin words;

• bèk = back
• bòter = bottle

Italian origin words:

• kushina = kitchen - Italian cucina; Spanish cocina; Portuguese cozinha
• lanterna/latern = lantern - Italian lanterna; Portuguese, lanterna

Native American words:

• horkan = hurricane - Taino, hurakan; Carib, yuracan, hyoracan;

Dictionaries

• "GUIA para los españoles hablar papiamento y viceversa: Para que los de Curazao puedan hablar espanol ... (1876)

Author: N. N.; Publisher: Impr. del Comercio; Year: 1876 Possible copyright status: NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT; Language: Spanish Digitizing sponsor: Google Book from the collections of: Harvard University Collection: americana Notes: Cover-title: Guia-manual para que los españoles puedan hablar y comprender el papiamento ó patois de Curazao y vice-versa ... http://www.archive.org/details/guiaparalosespa00ngoog

• Mansur, Jossy M. (1991) Dictionary English-Papiamento Papiamento-English. Oranjestad: Edicionnan Clasico Diario
• Betty Ratzlaff (2008) Papiamentu-Ingles, Dikshonario Bilingual e di dos edishon. Bonaire: St. Jong Bonaire
• Websters online Papiamento – English Dictionary

Grammar

• E. R. Goilo (2000) Papiamentu Textbook. Oranjestad: De Wit Stores N.V.

Writing system

There are two orthographies: a more phonetic one called Papiamentu (in Curaçao and Bonaire), and the etymological spelling used in Aruba.

Examples

Phrase samples

NOTE: These examples are from Curaçao Papiamentu and not from Aruban Papiamento.

• Kon ta bai? or Kon ta k'e bida?: "How are you?" or "How is life?", Portuguese, Como vai?/Como está a vida?, Spanish ¿Cómo te va? ¿Cómo te va la vida?
• Por fabor/ Sea asina di: "Please" Portuguese/Spanish por favor
• Danki: "Thank you" Dutch, Dank je
• Ainda no: "Not yet" Portuguese Ainda não
• Mi (ta) stima bo: "I love you" Portuguese Eu (te) estimo (você) / Eu te amo
• Laga nos ban sali!/ban sali: "Let's go out!", Spanish ¡Vamos a salir!
• Kòrda skirbi mi bèk mas lihé posibel!: "Remember to write me back as soon as possible!" Portuguese: Recorde-se de me escrever assim que for possível.
• Bo mama ta mashá bunita: "Your mother is very nice" Portuguese Tua/Sua mãe é muito bonita.

Comparison of vocabularies

This section provides a comparison of the vocabularies of Portuguese, Papiamento and the Portuguese creoles of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde. Spanish also shown for contrast.

*Santiago Creole variant
**Writing system used in this example: ALUPEC
***Portuguese expression used in creole.

See also

• Afro-Latin American
• Creole language
• Linguistics
• Palenquero
• Portuguese-based creole languages
• Spanish-based creole languages

References

Bibliography

• Eva Eckkrammer: How to Pave the Way for the Emancipation of a Creole Language. Papiamentu, or What Can a Literature Do for its Language. In: Hoogbergen, Wim (ed.). Born Out of Resistance. On Caribbean Cultural Creativity. Utrecht: Isor-Publications, 1994, 359-365.
• Eva Eckkrammer: The Standardisation of Papiamentu: New Trends, Problems and Perspectives. In: Dazzi Gross, Anna-Alice / Lorenza Mondada (eds.). Les langues minoritaires en contexte. Minderheitensprachen im Kontext. Bd. I. Les langues minoritaires entre diversité et standardisation. Minderheitensprachen zwischen Vielfalt und Standardisierung. Neuchâtel: Institut de linguistique de l´Université de Neuchâtel (= Bulletin suisse de linguistique appliquée 69/1), 1999, 59-74.
• Eva Eckkrammer: Papiamentu, Cultural Resistance, and Socio-Cultural Challenges: The ABC Islands in a Nutshell. In: Journal of Caribbean Literatures 5/1, 2007, 73-93.
• Quint, Nicolas. 2000. Le Cap Verdien: Origines et Devenir d’une Langue Métisse. Paris: L’Harmattan
• Jacobs, Bart. 2008. "Papiamentu: A diachronic analysis of its core morphology". Phrasis 2008 (2), 59-82.
• Jacobs, Bart. 2009a. “The Upper Guinea origins of Papiamentu. Linguistic and historical evidence”. Diachronica 26:3, 319-379.
• Jacobs, Bart. 2009b. "The origins of Old Portuguese features in Papiamentu". In: Nicholas Faraclas, Ronald Severing, Christa Weijer & Liesbeth Echteld (eds.), Leeward voices: Fresh perspectives on Papiamentu and the literatures and cultures of the ABC Islands. Volume 1, 11-38. Curaçao: FPI/UNA.
• Efraim Frank Martinus (1996) The Kiss of a Slave: Papiamentu's West-African Connections. University of Amsterdam Press.
• Gary Fouse (2002) The Story of Papiamentu. New York: University Press of America
• John H. Holm (1989) Pidgins and Creoles Volume One. Theory and Structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
• John McWhorter (2000) The Missing Spanish Creoles: Recovering the Birth of Plantation Contact Language. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Gerard van Buurt & Sidney M Joubert (1997) Stemmen uit het Verleden, Indiaanse Woorden in het Papiamentu. Curaçao

External links and further reading

• General (socio-)linguistic and historical information on Papiamentu, including an unedited poem (with translation) from the Curaçaoan poet Lucille Berry-Haseth
• Ethnologue.com, report on Papiamentu.
• Papiamento Official Aruba Government Portal
• Papiamento – English Dictionary
• Newspaper from Aruba
• La Prensa A Leading Curaçao Newspaper in Papiamentu
• Hasibokos I-News in Papiamento (and Dutch)
• Radio Curom Listen to Papiamentu Radio
• Papiamentu - history and grammatical features
• Papiamentu origins
• Bible Excerpt in Papiamentu
• Papiamentu Translator a simple online translation English - Papiamentu
• iPapiamentu A blog on learning Papiamentu for English speakers
• Papiamentu tur dia A blog for English-speaking students of Papiamentu
• Papiamentu Pronunciation and Grammar Wiki
• For a discussion about the origins of Papiamentu, see "Papiamentu facts", an essay by Attila Narin.
• "A Language Thrives in Its Caribbean Home" article by Simon Romero in The New York Times July 4, 2010