Papiamento

## Overview

**Papiamento,** or **Papiamentu,** is a Portuguese-based creole language spoken in the Dutch West Indies. It is the most-widely spoken language on the Caribbean ABC islands, having official status in Aruba and Curaçao. The language is also recognized in Bonaire by the Dutch government.

Papiamento is based largely on Portuguese language with some elements of grammar and vocabulary deriving from African languages, a strong influence from Spanish, and some vocabulary from Indigenous American languages, as well as English and Dutch. There is some degree of mutual intelligibility with both Portuguese and Spanish.

## History

The precise historical origins of Papiamento have not been established. 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 centuries, respectively).

Its parent language is Iberian for sure, but scholars dispute whether Papiamento is derived from Portuguese or from Spanish.

The name of the language itself comes from *papia*, *pap(e)o* or *pap(e)ar* ("to chat", "to talk"), a word present in Portuguese (*um papo*, "a chat") and colloquial Spanish; compare with *Papiá Kristang* ("Christian talk"), a Portuguese-based creole of Malaysia and Singapore, alternate term for Macanese Patois called *Papia Cristam di Macau* ("Christian speech of Macau"), and the Cape Verdean Creole word *papiâ*("to talk"), or elsewhere in the Caribbean (Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Cuba) *papear*—"to talk excessively" (and without sense) or "to stutter" (but also, "to eat" or "food". Castilian Spanish *papeo*, Portuguese *papar* is a children's term for "to eat").

Spain claimed dominion over the islands in the 15th century, but made little use of them after the Spanish defeat to the Netherlands as a result of Eighty Years' War. Portuguese merchants had been trading extensively in the West Indies, and with the Union with Castille, this trade extended to the Castillian West Indies, as the Spanish kings favoured the free movement of people. 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 through 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 Civilized). *Civilizado* (stress on /za/) is Spanish and Portuguese for "civilized" but can also be understood as having a suppressed final "r" from the word *civilizador* (stress on /do/) ("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 Arawak) influences. Another theory is that Papiamento first evolved from the use in this region since 1499 of 'lenguas' and the first Repopulation of the ABC islands by the Spanish by the Cédula real decreed in November 1525, in which Juan Martinez de Ampués, factor of Española, had been granted the right to repopulate the depopulated Islas inútiles of Oroba, Islas de los Gigantes and Buon Aire. Columbus took ten natives back to Europe precisely so that they could acquire knowledge of the Spanish language and culture, a policy he maintained throughout future voyages. On his return to America, Columbus was accompanied by two interpreters ('lenguas', literally, 'tongues'), Alonso de Cáceres and a young boy from Guanahani (the Bahamas) who was given the name Diego Colón. Subsequent expeditions followed the same pattern. In 1499 Alonso de Ojeda, Juan de la Cosa and Amerigo Vespuccio took captives to serve as *lenguas*. Ojeda actually married his native interpreter and guide, Isabel. The evolution of Papiamento continued under the Dutch Colonization under the influence of the 16th century 'Dutch'/European/Native American (ABC islands) and 'Portuguese'/Native American (Brazilian) languages with the second Repopulation of these ABC islands under Peter Stuyvesant, who arrived here from the ex-Dutch Brazilian colonies.

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 and their Portuguese-speaking Dutch allies and Dutch-speaking Portuguese Brazilian allies 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 played 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-Portuguese (presently extinct)and Judaeo-Spanish were 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. When Netherlands opened economic ties with Spanish colonies in what are now Venezuela and Colombia in the 18th century that the students on Curaçao, Aruba, and Bonaire were taught predominantly in Spanish, Spanish began to influence the creole language. Influence of English dates to the early 19th century, when the British took Curaçao, Aruba, and Bonaire until after Dutch rule resumed in 1815. Because of this, during the 18th and 19th centuries, Spanish, English, and French were very important languages for the colonial elites, who for the most part did not use the Dutch language. Since there was a continuous Latinization process (Hoetink, 1987), even the elite Dutch-Protestant settlers eventually served better in Spanish than in Dutch. A wealth of local Spanish-language publications in the nineteenth century testify to this. It has recently been discovered that a small group on the Venezuelan Paraguaná peninsula speaks a variant of Papiamento. Some researchers claim that the Papiamentu that originated in Curaçao via Venezuela ended up on Aruba and that that is why the Aruban dialect of Papiamento sounds more like Spanish in terms of sound and vocabulary.

### European and African Development Theory

Peter Stuyvesant's appointment to the ABC islands followed his service in Brazil. He brought Indians, soldiers, etc. from Brazil to Curaçao as well as to New Netherland. In Stuyvesant's Resolution Book, document #4b in the Curaçao Papers presents 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 ..." They communicated with each other in 'Papiamento' a language originating when 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 in New Netherland 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 manage their colonies.

A more recent theory 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 Portuguese 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 Papiamento 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". 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 Northern Portugal). However, because of the similarities between Portuguese and Spanish, it can also be argued that these two words derive from Spanish "mi" and "vos" (usually pronounced *bos*).

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.

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.

### Ties with Upper Guinea Portuguese Creole

Current research on the origins of Papiamento focuses specifically on the linguistic and historical relationships between Papiamento 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), Jacobs (2008, 2009a, 2009b]) defends the hypothesis that Papiamento 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 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 Papiamento is still remarkably close to that of the Upper Guinea Creoles of Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau/Casamance.

## Papiamento excerpt from Wikipedia article "Papiamentu"

Segun historia, e vokabulario básiko y e karakterístika gramatikal ta similar ku esun di e lenga di Kabo Bèrdè ku a surgi ku un fundeshi básiko ku ta di Portugues y otro influensia ku a pasa despues (siglo 17 y 18 respektivamente). E nòmber di e idioma mes ta bin di *papear*, un palabra usa den Portugues y Spañó kolonial: kompará ku *Papiá Kristang* basa riba Portugues krioyo di Malaysia y Singapura, y e krioyo di Kabo Bèrdè *papiâ* òf den Caribe (Puerto Rico, Repúblika Dominikano, Cuba) "papiar"- papia ekstensivamente (pero tambe den e término Portugues kiermen "kome"). Spaña a clama e dominio over di e islanan den siglo 15, pero nan no a hasi hopi uso di dje. Na 1634, West Indische Companie (WIC) a tuma e islanan over, deportando e Arawaknan cu a keda y e poblashon Spaño pa continente y a pone nan bira centro di trato di catibo entre Africa y Caribe.

E historia di e orígen di Papiamentu te ainda no ta konosí. Probablemente Papiamentu a nase for di Portugues òf for di Spañó. Un resúmen di e debate tokante Papiamentu ta di haña den un buki di Jacobs (2009a).

E prome evidencia di e uso genarlisa di e Papiamento di Aruba por wordo mira den un documento oficial di Curaçao den siglo 18. Den siglo 19, e mayoria di e materialnan tabata skibi na Papiamento incluyendo buki di scol, di Misa Catolico Romano y e himnarionan. E prome corant na Papiamento publica na aña 1871 cu e titulo "Civilisado". "Civilizador" ta un palabra Spaño y Portugues, pero por wordo comprondi como custumber di e papiamento na final di palabra e "r" ta cai afo.