Papiamento

Papiamento (English: /ˌpɑːpiəˈmɛntoʊ, ˌpæp-/) or Papiamentu (English: /-ˈmɛntuː/) 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. A summary of the century-long debate on Papiamento's origins is provided in Jacobs (2009a).

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[citation needed] 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.