Papiamento
Sign in to savePapiamento (), or Papiamentu (; ), is a Portuguese-based creole language spoken in the Dutch Caribbean. It is the most widely spoken language on Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao (the ABC islands).
AI overview
Papiamento is a creole language with Portuguese roots that is spoken in the Dutch Caribbean, primarily on the islands of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao. It is the most widely spoken language in these three islands, making it an important part of the local culture and identity.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Key facts
- Language.familycolor
- Creole
- Language.name
- Papiamento
- Language.states
- Dutch Caribbean
- Language.speakers
- 350,000
- Language.date
- 2025
- Language.ref
- e25
- Language.script
- Latin (Papiamento orthography)
- Language.fam1
- Portuguese Creole
- Language.fam2
- Afro-Portuguese Creole
- Language.fam3
- Upper Guinea Creole
- Language.fam4
- Early Papiamento
- Language.iso2
- pap
- Language.iso3
Article
30 sectionsContents
- History
- Local development theory
- European and African origin theory
- Linguistic and historical ties with Upper Guinea Portuguese Creole
- Present status
- Old Papiamento texts
- Piter May letter 1775
- Boo Jantje letter 1783
- Quant Court affidavit 1803
- Orthography and spelling
- Distribution and dialects
- Phonology
- Vowels and diphthongs
- Stress and accent
- Lexicon
- Vocabulary
- Literature and culture
- Examples
- Phrase and word samples
- Expressions
- Lord's Prayer
- Comparison of vocabularies
- See also
- Notes
- References
- Works cited
- Further reading
- Dictionaries
- Grammar
- External links
Papiamento (), or Papiamentu (; ), is a Portuguese-based creole language spoken in the Dutch Caribbean. It is the most widely spoken language on Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao (the ABC islands).
The language, spelled in Aruba and 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 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, as it has many similarities with Cape Verdean Creole and Guinea-Bissau Creole.
Gallery (22)
Connections
Categories
Language articles citing Ethnologue 25Language articles with Linguasphere codeLanguage articles with missing ELP parametersLanguages of ArubaLanguages of the African diasporaLanguages of the NetherlandsLanguages with ISO 639-2 codePapiamentoPortuguese-based pidgins and creolesPortuguese language in the Americas