12 Facts About Papiamento

Papiamento or Papiamentu is a Portuguese-based creole language spoken in the Dutch Caribbean.

Papiamento is a recognised language in the Dutch public bodies of Bonaire, Sint-Eustatius and Saba.

The first Papiamento newspaper was published in 1871 and was called Civilisado .

One local development theory proposes that Papiamento developed in the Caribbean from an original Portuguese-African pidgin, with later Dutch and Spanish influences.

Evolution of Papiamento continued under the Dutch colonisation under the influence of 16th-century Dutch, Portuguese and Native American languages, with the second repopulation of the ABC islands with immigrants who arrived from the ex-Dutch Brazilian colonies.

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In Bart Jacob's study The Upper Guinea Origins of Papiamento he defends the hypothesis that Papiamento is a relexified offshoot of an early Upper Guinea Portuguese Creole variety that was transferred from Senegambia to Curacao in the second half of the 17th century, when the Dutch controlled the island of Goree, a slave trading stronghold off the coast of Senegal.

Papiamento is spoken in all aspects of society throughout Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire.

Papiamento has been an official language of Aruba since May 2003.

Some Papiamento is spoken on Sint Maarten and the Paraguana Peninsula of Venezuela.

Papiamento has two main dialects, one in Aruba and one in Curacao and Bonaire, with lexical and intonational differences.

Papiamento has diphthongs, two vowels in a single syllable that form one sound.

Lord's Prayer in a register of Papiamento used liturgically by the Roman Catholic Church, compared with Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch and King James English:.