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Papiamento Papiamentu
Spoken in:	Netherlands Antilles, Aruba and Netherlands
Region:	Caribbean islands
Total speakers:	329,000
Language family:	Creole language  Portuguese Creole[1]   Papiamento
Official status
Official language in:	Aruba, Netherlands Antilles
Regulated by:	no official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	pap
ISO 639-3:	pap
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Papiamento, or Papiamentu, is the language spoken on the Caribbean islands of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao (the so-called ABC islands).

Papiamento is a creole language with roots in primarily Portuguese and Spanish, and to a lesser extent Dutch, African, and Native Indian languages.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Local development theory 1.2 African origin theory 1.3 Present status 2 Dialects 3 Sounds 4 Grammar 4.1 Vocabulary 4.2 Dictionaries 5 Writing system 6 Examples 6.1 Phrase samples 7 Comparison of Vocabularies 8 References 9 Bibliography 10 See also 11 External links

The historical origins of Papiamento are still not very well known. It is still disputed whether Papiamento originated from Portuguese or from Spanish. Due to the resemblance between Spanish and Portuguese, it is difficult to tell whether a particular word came from one or from the other, or even from Italian (old Genovese). In addition, some Arubans claim Papiamentu to be of exclusively Arawak-Spanish origin and do not want to accept the African influence on the language, while others do not want to accept the Native American influence on Papiamento and therefore maintain it to be an exclusively Afro-Iberian language that developed first on Curaçao and then spread to Aruba. While such discussions often are based on historical evidence selectively interpreted for nationalist purposes, they nevertheless further complicate the debate on the origins of Papiamento.

However, historical constraints, core vocabulary and grammatical features that Papiamento shares with Cape Verdean Creole suggest that the basic ingredients were Portuguese and languages of West Africa, and that the Dutch, Spanish and 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 both Portuguese and Spanish; compare with Papiá Kristang ("Christian talk"), a Portuguese-based creole of Indonesia, and the Cape Verdean Creole word papiâ ("to talk"). Spain claimed dominion over the islands in the 16th century, but made little use of them. In 1634 the Dutch-based West India Company (WIC) took possession of the islands, deporting their small Arawak and Spanish population to the continent, and turned them into the hub of the Dutch slave trade between Africa and the Caribbean. An outline of the competing theories is provided below.

There are various local development theories. One such theory proposes that Papiamento developed in the Caribbean from a Portuguese-African pidgin used for communication between African slaves and Portuguese-speaking slave traders. For religious and political reasons, the traders were mostly Jews of Portuguese origin.

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, for fear of being punished as Dutch collaborators. 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. It is certain that Papiamento is linguistically similar to Ladino, the language of early Portuguese/Spanish Sephardic communities. Many early residents of Curaçao were Sephardic Jews either from Portugal, Spain, or Portuguese Brazil. Therefore, it can be assumed that Ladino 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/Ladino. As various nations owned the island and official languages changed with ownership, Papiamento/Ladino became the constant language of the residents.

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 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 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^[help] [mĩ]) "me", and bo is from Portuguese vós "you" ^[2]. The use of "b" instead of "v" is very common in the African Portuguese Creoles due to their relation with Northern Portugal dialects.^{[citation needed]}

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 ^[3].

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).

Many Papiamento speakers are also able to speak Dutch, English and Spanish. Venezuelan Spanish is a constant influence today, especially in Aruba. In the Netherlands Antilles, Papiamento was made an official language on March 7, 2007.^[4]

Papiamento has three main dialects, one per island: Aruba, Curaçao and Bonaire.

Most Papiamento vowels are based on Ibero-Romance vowels, but some are also based on Dutch vowels like : ee, ui, ie, oe, ij, ei, oo, and aa.

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. 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 are inventarising several hundred words of indigenous Arawak origins ^[5]

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

• por fabor = please - Spanish/Portuguese, por favor
• señora = mrs, madam - Spanish, señora'; 'Portuguese, senhora;
• kua? = which? Spanish, cuál?;

- Portuguese, qual?; * kuantu? = how many? - 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:

• sapatu = shoes - Spanish, zapato; Portuguese, sapato;
• kacho = dog - Spanish, cachorro; (puppy)Portuguese, cachorro (dog or puppy);
• bisiña = neighbour - Spanish, vecino, vecina; Portuguese, vizinho, vizinha;
• galiña = hen or chicken - Spanish, gallina; Portuguese, galinha;

Spanish origin words:

• siudat = city - Spanish, ciudad; Portuguese, cidade
• sombré = hat - Spanish, sombrero; Portuguese, chapéu
• karson = trousers - Spanish, calzón; Portuguese, calção
• homber = man - Spanish, hombre; Portuguese, homem

Dutch origin words:

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

English origin words;

• bek = back
• botter = bottle

Italian origin words:

• cushina = kitchen - Italian "cuccina"
• lanterna = lantern - Italian "lanterna"

Native American words:

• horcan = huricane - Taino, hurakan; Carib, yuracan, hyoracan;

• Mansur, Jossy M. (1991) Dictionary English-Papiamento Papiamento-English. Oranjestad: Edicionnan Clasico Diario
• Betty Ratzlaff (1992) Papiamentu-Ingles, Dikshonario Bilingual. Bonaire: TWR Dictionary Foundation
• Papiamento – English Dictionary

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

This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please improve this article if you can (September 2007).

NOTE: These examples are from the Aruban Papiamento, not the other Papiamentu

• Bon biní! = Welcome!, Portuguese

• Bon dia = Good morning, Portuguese Bom dia; Spanish Buenos días

• Mòru = The short way of saying "Good morning" from Dutch "(Goede) morgen"

• Bon tardi = Good afternoon, Portuguese Boa tarde, Spanish buenas tardes

• Bon nochi = Good night (Portuguese, Boa noite; Spanish, Buenas noches)

• 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?

• Mi ta bon, danki = I'm fine, thank you.

• Tur kos ta bon = everything is all right, Portuguese tudo está bem (bom) (kos = coisa)

• Mashá bon or Tremendo = I'm all right or I feel very bad

• Trankilo = calm, Portuguese tranqüilo, Spanish tranquilo

• Hopi kalor = very hot/warm, Portuguese/Spanish calor/caliente (hopi = Dutch hoop, lit. a heap, a lot)

• Kon yama bo? or Kon bo nòmber ta? = What's your name?, Portuguese/Spanish Como você se chama? / Como te llamas?

• Ami yama Raul or Mi nòmber ta Raul = My name is Raul, Portuguese, Me Chamo Raul / Meu nome é Raul; Spanish, Mi nombre es Raul/Me llamo Raul

• Di unda bo ta? = Where are you from?, Portuguese, De onde você vem?

• Mi ta bini di… = I come from…, Portuguese Eu venho de…

• Mi ta biba na… = I live in…, Portuguese Eu vivo na…, Spanish Yo vivo en…

• Por fabor = Please, Portuguese/Spanish por favor

• Danki = Thank you, Dutch, Dank u

• Di nada! = it was no trouble at all! (or it was nothing!), Portuguese/Spanish De nada

• Hende hòmber = Male, Portuguese, Homem; Spanish Hombre

• Hende muhé = Female, Portuguese Mulher; Spanish Mujer

• Hende = mankind, or people, Spanish "gente"in Papiamento "female" and "male" attribute is referred externally

• Si = Yes, Spanish Sí; Portuguese Sim

• Nò = No, Spanish No; Portuguese Não

• Ainda no = Not yet, Portuguese Ainda não

• Ayó! = Goodbye!, Portuguese Adeus; Spanish Adiós

• Te otro biaha! = until next time!, Portuguese Até outro dia

• Te aweró = See you later!

• Mi ta sinti bo falta! = I miss you!, Portuguese Eu sinto vossa falta!, Spanish me haces falta

• Mi (ta) stima bo = I love you, Portuguese Eu (te) estimo (você) / Eu te amo

• Awor / Aworakí = Now, Portuguese Agora; Spanish Ahora

• Ayera = Yesterday, Spanish Ayer

• Mi tin hamber = I am hungry, from Spanish Tengo hambre

• Mi tin set = I am thirsty, Spanish Tengo sed, Portuguese Tenho sede

• Laga nos ban sali! = Let's go out!, Spanish ¡Vamos a salir!

• Te mañan!, Te mas aweró! (Te' oro), Te despues! =Until tomorrow!, see you later!, Till the next time!, Portuguese Até amanhã, Até logo, Até depois)

• Pabien! = Happy birthday! (also means congratulations!), Portuguese Parabéns!

• Bon Aña! = Happy new year!, Portuguese Feliz ano novo or Bom ano; Spanish Feliz año nuevo

• Bon pasku (di nasemento)! Bon pasku (di resurekshon) = Merry Christmas! Happy Easter!, Portuguese, Boa Páscoa

• No lubidá! = Don't forget!, Spanish, No olvides

• Kòrda skirbi mi bèk mas lihé posibel! = Write me back as soon as possible!

• Mener = Mister, Portuguese Senhor; Spanish Señor; Dutch Meneer

• Señora = Mrs, Madam, Portuguese Senhora, Spanish Señora

• Yùfrou = Miss, Ms., Dutch, juffrouw

• Mi number di telefòn ta… = my phone number is…, Portuguese Meu número de telefone é…, Spanish Mi número de teléfono es…

• Yamami = Call me (by telephone); Spanish Llámame.

• Oloshi = Clock /watch, Dutch: "horloge", Spanish: "reloj", Portuguese: "relógio"

• Mi ta stimabo = I love you.

• Mashá kontentu di konosébo = Nice to meet you; Portuguese: (Estou) muito contente em conhecê-lo (not sure of the translation).

• Bo mama ta mashá simpátiko = Your mother is very nice.

This section provides a comparison of the vocabularies of Portuguese, Papiamento and the Portuguese creoles of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde.

English	Portuguese	Papiamento	Guinea-Bissau	Cape Verdean
Welcome	Bem-vindo	Bon Biní	Bô bim drito	Nhôs bem dreto
Good day	Bom Dia	Bon dia	Bon dia	Bon dia
Thank you	Obrigado	Danki	Obrigadu	Obrigadu
How are you?	Como vai?	Kon ta bai?	Kumá ku bo na bai?	Módi ki bu sa ta bai?
Very good	Muito bom	Mashá bon	Mutu bon	Mutu bon
I am fine	Eu estou bem	Mi ta bon	N' sta bon	N sta dretu
I, I am	Eu, Eu Sou	Mi, Mi ta	N', Mi i	N, Mi e
Have a nice day	Tenha um bom dia	Pasa un bon dia	Pasa un bon dia	Pasa un bon dia
See you later	Vejo você depois, Até logo	Te aweró	N' ta odjá-u dipus	N ta odjâ-u dipôs, Te logu
Food	Comida	Kuminda	Bianda	Kumida
Bread	Pão	Pan	Pon	Pon
Juice	Suco, Refresco, Sumo	Djus	Sumu	Sumu
I love Curaçao	Eu amo Curaçao	Mi stima Kòrsou	N' gosta di Curaçao	N gosta di Curaçao

• Writing system adopted in this example: ALUPEC

• 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

• Creole language
• Linguistics
• Palenquero
• Afro-Latin American

• [1]: Ethnologue report on Papiamentu.
• 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
• For a discussion about the origins of Papiamentu, see "Papiamentu facts", an essay by Attila Narin.

v • d • e Official Languages of South America

Aymara (Bolivia, Peru) · Dutch (Netherlands Antilles, Aruba, Suriname) · English (Falkland Islands, Guyana) French (French Guiana) (France) · Guarani (Paraguay) · Papiamento (Netherlands Antilles, Aruba) · Portuguese (Brazil) · Quechua (Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia) Spanish (Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina) All native languages are official in Peru, in areas in which they are the majority language.

v • d • e Portuguese Creoles
Upper Guinea Creoles	Cape Verdean Creole • Guinea-Bissau Creole
Gulf of Guinea Creoles	Angolar • Annobonese • Forro • Principense
Indo-portuguese Creoles	Daman Indo-Portuguese • Diu Indo-Portuguese • Kristi • Sri Lanka Indo-Portuguese
Malayo-portuguese Creoles	Bidau Portuguese • Papiá Kristang • Papiá Tugu • Portugis
Sino-portuguese Creoles	Macanese
Caribbean-based Creoles a Portuguese Creole that today is higly influenced by Spanish	Papiamento