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Papiamento

Papiamento
Papiamentu
Native toDutch Caribbean
Native speakers
350,000 (2001–2024)[1]
Portuguese Creole
Latin (Papiamento orthography)
Official status
Official language in
Aruba
Bonaire
Curaçao[a]
Language codes
ISO 639-2pap
ISO 639-3pap
Glottologpapi1253
Linguasphere51-AAC-be
Location map of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao, where Papiamento is spoken

Papiamento (English: /ˌpæpiəˈmɛnt, ˌpɑː-/)[3] or Papiamentu (English: /-t/; Dutch: Papiaments [ˌpaːpijaːˈmɛnts]) is a Portuguese-based creole language spoken in the Dutch Caribbean. It is the most widely spoken language on the ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao).[4]

The language, spelled Papiamento in Aruba and Papiamentu in Bonaire and Curaçao, is largely based on Portuguese as spoken in the 15th and 16th centuries, and has been influenced considerably by Dutch and Venezuelan Spanish. Due to lexical similarities between Portuguese and Spanish, it is difficult to pinpoint the exact origin of some words. Though there are different theories about its origins, most linguists now believe that Papiamento emerged from the Portuguese-based creole languages of the West African coasts,[5] as it has many similarities with Cape Verdean Creole and Guinea-Bissau Creole.[6][7][8]

  1. ^ Papiamento at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022) Closed access icon
  2. ^ "Invoeringswet openbare lichamen Bonaire, Sint Eustatius en Saba" (in Dutch). wetten.nl. Retrieved 1 January 2011.
  3. ^ Wells 2008.
  4. ^ "Language and education in The Caribbean Netherlands".
  5. ^ Quint, Nicolas (8 September 2011). "From West Africa to the Antilles, Dynamic Portuguese Creoles". Sorosoro. Retrieved 19 March 2022.
  6. ^ Jacobs, Bart (9 November 2009). "The Upper Guinea origins of Papiamentu: Linguistic and historical evidence". Diachronica. 26 (3): 319–379. doi:10.1075/dia.26.3.02jac. ISSN 0176-4225.
  7. ^ Romero, Simon (5 July 2010). "Willemstad Journal: A Language Thrives in Its Caribbean Home". The New York Times.
  8. ^ Lang 2000.


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Papiaments AF بابيامنتو Arabic Papiamentu AST پاپیامنتو دیلی AZB Papiamentu BAR Пап’ямента BE Папіямэнта BE-X-OLD Папиаменто Bulgarian Papiamento BR Papiament Catalan

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