Capeverdean Crioulo

Writing system

There is a new orthographic convention, named ALUPEC which stands for "Alfabeto Unificado para a Escrita do Caboverdiano" (Portuguese), "Alfabetu Unifikadu pa Skrita di Kabuverdianu" (Kriolu) which is written in Latin Alphabet. It has 23 letters and four digraphs: A B S D E F G H I J DJ L LH M N NH N O P K R T U V X TX Z. ALUPEC is based on efficiency and tries to simply the ortographic system. It has led to lot of scepticism and rejection on the other islands, mostly because it is based on the Santiago Crioulo. The rejection is due to the fact that it doesn't respect enough the over 100 year old writing history of the Capeverdean creole. ALUPEC accentuates for these reasons on the different capeverdean islands the fear of losing there own cultural identity.

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Citation from William A. Smalley: .... Writing Systems, after all, are cultural phenomea, used by people with feelings and emotions, with prejudices and fears ....

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Today only Portuguese is used in school throughout Cape Verde. French is taught as the most popular learning language in school. Cape Verde is also one of the three lusophone members of the 'Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie'.

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A small study (Student Survey 2000) in a secondary school in Barlavento islands showed little support for the use of creole in the classroom. This is however normal as the children of a secondary class are coming from different islands, each with its own creoles, often incomprehensible. The only solution out of this dilemma is the use of Portuguese in the classroom.

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According to Manuel Veiga: ... there must be a process of standardization between the North and the North, which will take the variety of São Vicente as a basis, and another process South/South, which will take the variety of Santiago as a basis.... (see Language Policy in Cape Verde: A Proposal for the Affirmation of Kriolu )

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