Papiamentu

Papiamentu
Pa·pia·men·tu (pä'pyə-mĕnʹto͞o) also Pa·pia·men·to (-tō) n.
A creole based on Portuguese and pidginized Spanish and spoken in the Netherlands Antilles.
  [From Papiamentu papia, talk, probably from Portuguese papaguear, papear, to chatter, from papagaio, parrot.]

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also spelled  Papiamento  

      creole (creole languages) language based on Portuguese but heavily influenced by Spanish and spoken primarily on the Caribbean islands of Curaçao, Aruba, and Bonaire of the Netherlands Antilles.

      Papiamentu developed in Curaçao after the Netherlands took over the island from Spain in 1634. In 1659, having been expelled from Brazil, several Portuguese-speaking Dutch colonists and their Sephardic Jewish allies immigrated to Curaçao. They took with them not only their slaves but also a Portuguese vernacular. If this vernacular did not yet qualify as a creole, it would within the following decades, after being appropriated and modified by the African slaves who were continually being imported to the island, which was used as a slave-trading centre or “slave depot.” Increased contacts with Spanish-speaking slave buyers from mainland South America introduced a Spanish element into the then-developing Papiamentu. During the 18th century the creole apparently spread to Curaçao's sister islands of Aruba and Bonaire.

      Because of structural similarities between Portuguese and Spanish that make it difficult to distinguish their respective influences, Papiamentu is often identified simply as an Iberian creole. It is one of the rare Atlantic creoles that clearly use tones for lexical (vocabulary) and grammatical contrasts, as in pápà ‘pope' versus pàpá ‘dad' or biáhà ‘travel' (noun) versus biàhá ‘to travel,' in which the acute accent [´] represents the high tone and the grave accent [‘] the low tone. Papiamentu is also one of the few Caribbean creoles that have been well integrated into the elementary and secondary school systems and mass media as well as the political life of the islands.

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Universalium. 2010.

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Look at other dictionaries:

  • Papiamentu — oder Papiamento ist eine Kreolsprache mit circa 330.000 Sprechern, die in der Karibik auf den ABC Inseln (Aruba, Bonaire und Curaçao) gesprochen wird. Inhaltsverzeichnis 1 Sprachbezeichnung 2 Ursprung der Kreolsprache 3 …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Papiamentu — Papiamento Pour les articles homonymes, voir PAP. Papiamento Parlée aux Antilles néerlandaises, Aruba Nombre de locuteurs 320 000, dont 179 000 dans les Antilles néerlandaises et Aruba (1998) …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Papiamentu (Sprache) — Papiamentu oder Papiamento ist eine Kreolsprache, die in der Karibik auf den ABC Inseln (Aruba, Bonaire und Curaçao) gesprochen wird. Inhaltsverzeichnis 1 Sprachbezeichnung 2 Ursprung der Kreolsprache 3 Sprachgenese …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Papiamentu — noun see Papiamento …   New Collegiate Dictionary

  • Papiamentu — noun A Creole language spoken on the Caribbean islands of Aruba, Curaçao, and Bonaire …   Wiktionary

  • Papiamentu — n. Creole language (based on Spanish) spoken on the Caribbean islands of Aruba and Curacao and Bonaire …   English contemporary dictionary

  • Papiamentu — …   Useful english dictionary

  • Papiamento — Papiamentu oder Papiamento ist eine Kreolsprache, die in der Karibik auf den ABC Inseln (Aruba, Bonaire und Curaçao) gesprochen wird. Inhaltsverzeichnis 1 Sprachbezeichnung 2 Ursprung der Kreolsprache 3 Sprachgenese …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Papiamento — Infobox Language name = Papiamento nativename = Papiamento familycolor = Creole states = Netherlands Antilles, Aruba and Netherlands nation = flag|Aruba flag|Netherlands Antilles region = Caribbean islands speakers = 329,000 fam1 = Creole… …   Wikipedia

  • Curaçao — Land Curaçao Land Curaçao …   Deutsch Wikipedia

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