Cabo Verdean Creole

## Overview

**Cabe Verdean Creole** (also known as natively as *kriolu*, *kabuverdianu* is a Portuguese-based creole language spoken on the islands of Cabo Verde. It is the native language of virtually all Cabo Verdeans and is used as a second language by the Cabo Verdean diaspora.

The language has particular importance for creolistics studies since it is the oldest (still-spoken) creole. It is the most widely spoken Portuguese-based creole language.

## Origins

The history of Cabo Verdean Creole is hard to trace due to a lack of written documentation and to ostracism during the Portuguese administration of Cabo Verde.

There are presently three theories about the formation of Creole. The monogenetic theory claims that the creole was formed by the Portuguese by simplifying the Portuguese language in order to make it accessible to African slaves. That is the point of view of authors like Prudent, Waldman, Chaudenson, Lopes da Silva. Authors like Adam and Quint argue that Creole was formed by African slaves using the grammar of Western African languages and replacing the African lexicon with the Portuguese one. Linguists like Chomsky and Bickerton argue that Creole was formed spontaneously, not by slaves from continental Africa, but by the population born in the islands, using the grammar with which all human beings are born; this would explain how creoles localized several miles away have similar grammatical structures, even though they have a different lexical basis.

According to A. Carreira,[5] Cabo Verdean Creole was formed from a Portuguese pidgin, on the island of Santiago, starting from the 15th century. That pidgin was then transported to the west coast of Africa by the *lançados*. From there, that pidgin diverged into two proto-Creoles, one that was the base of all Cabo Verdean Creoles, and another that was the base of the Guinea-Bissau Creole.

Cross referencing information regarding the settlement of each island with the linguistic comparisons, it is possible to conjecture some conclusions. The spreading of Cabo Verdean Creole within the islands was done in three phases:[6]

* In a first phase, the island of Santiago was occupied (2nd half of the 15th century), followed by Fogo (end of the 16th century).
* In a second phase, the island of São Nicolau was occupied (mostly in the 2nd half of the 17th century), followed by Santo Antão (mostly in the 2nd half of the 17th century).
* In a third phase, the remaining islands were occupied by settlers from the first islands: Brava was occupied by population from Fogo (mostly in the beginning of the 18th century), Boa Vista by population from São Nicolau and Santiago (mostly in the 1st half of the 18th century), Maio by population from Santiago and Boa Vista (mostly in the 2nd half of the 18th century), São Vicente by population from Santo Antão and São Nicolau (mostly in the 19th century), Sal by population from São Nicolau and Boa Vista (mostly in the 19th century).

## Status

In spite of Creole being the first language of nearly all the population in Cabo Verde, Portuguese is still the official language. As Portuguese is used in everyday life (at school, in administration, in official acts, in relations with foreign countries, etc.), Portuguese and Cabo Verdean Creole live in a state of diglossia. Due to this overall presence of Portuguese, a decreolization process occurs for all the different Cabo Verdean Creole variants.

In spite of Creole not being officialized, there exists a governmental directive[ that puts forth the necessary conditions for the officialization of Creole. This officialization has not yet occurred, mostly because the language is not yet standardized, for several reasons:

* There is significant dialectal fragmentation. Speakers are reluctant to speak a variant that is not their own.
* Absence of rules to establish which is the right form (and also the right spelling) to be adopted for each word. For example, for the word corresponding to the Portuguese word *algibeira* (“pocket”), A. Fernandes records the forms *algibêra*, *agibêra*, *albigêra*, *aljubêra*, *alj’bêra*, *gilbêra*, *julbêra*, *lijbêra*.
* Absence of rules to establish which are the lexical limits to be adopted. It is frequent for speakers of Creole, when writing, to join different grammatical classes.[10] For ex.: *pâm...*instead of *pâ m’...* “for me to...”.
* Absence of rules to establish which are the grammatical structures to be adopted. It is not just about dialectal differences; even within a single variant there are fluctuations. For ex.: in the Santiago variant, when there are two sentences and one is subordinated to the other, there is a tense agreement in the verbs (*bú cría pâ m’ dába* “you wanted me to give” – both *cría* and *dába* are past tense), but some speakers do not practice it (*bú cría pâ m’ dâ* – past then present – or *bú crê pâ m’ dába* – present then past).
* The writing system (ALUPEC) has not been well accepted by all Creole users.
* The language levels (formal, informal, scientific, slang, etc.) are not well differentiated yet.

That is the reason why, each speaker when speaking (or writing) uses his/her own dialect, his/her own sociolect and his/her own idiolect.

To overcome these problems, some Creole advocates[11] propose the development of two standards: a North (Barlavento) standard, centered on the São Vicente variant, and a South (Sotavento) standard, centered on that of Santiago. If so, Creole would become a pluricentric language

## Grammar

Even though over 90% of Cabo Verdean Creole words are derived from Portuguese, the grammar is very different, which makes it extremely difficult for an untrained Portuguese native speaker even to understand a basic conversation. On the other hand, the grammar shows a lot of similarities with other creoles, Portuguese-based or not (check syntactic similarities of creoles).

## Cabo Verdean excerpts from Wikipedia article "Cabo Verdean Creole"

### Santiago variant

Quêl mudjêr cú quêm m’ encôntra ónti stába priocupáda púrqui êl sqêci dí sês minínus nâ scóla, í cándu êl bâi procurâ-’s êl câ olhâ-’s. Alguêm lembrâ-’l quí sês minínus sâ tâ pricisába dí material pâ úm pesquisa, entõ êl bâi encontrâ-’s nâ biblioteca tâ procúra úqui ês cría. Pâ gradêci â túdu quêm djudâ-’l, êl cumêça tâ fála, tâ flâ cômu êl stába contênti di fúndu di curaçãu.

### São Vicente variant

Quêl m’djêr c’ quêm m’ encontrá ônt’ táva priocupáda púrq’ êl sq’cê d’ sês m’nín’s nâ scóla, í cónd’ êl bái procurá-’s êl câ olhá-’s. Alguêm lembrá-’l qu’ sês m’nín’s táva tâ pr’cisá d’ material pâ úm pesquisa, entõ êl bâi encontrá-’s nâ biblioteca tâ procurá úq’ ês cría. Pâ gradecê â túd’ quêm j’dá-’l, êl c’meçá tâ fála, tâ dzê côm’ êl táva contênt’ d’ fúnd’ d’ curaçãu.