Portuguese Creole

: This article is primarily about the languages. See also a summary in the context of the other creole people.

Portuguese-American Creoles

The "Portuguese-American Creoles" spoken in Antilles and Suriname have been influenced by other languages — Dutch, Spanish, and English — respectively. Yet there is still a strong Portuguese influence. In the past, there were possibly Portuguese Creoles in Brazil; there is a Portuguese dialect in Helvécia, South of Bahia that presents signs of an earlier decreolization. Some say that vernacular Brazilian Portuguese (not the official and standard Brazilian Portuguese) shows signs of decreolization, but most linguists contradict that.

Related Topics:
Antilles - Suriname - Bahia - Brazilian Portuguese

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There are two non Portuguese-based creoles spoken in Brazil, in the state of Amapá, both French-based: Lanc-Patuá and Karipuna Creole. Both are recently (20th century) transplanted varieties of Caribbean French creoles, and the Portuguese influence on them is minor, and in vocabulary. Relatively little is known about them.

Related Topics:
Brazil - Amapá - Lanc-Patuá - Karipuna Creole

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Papiamento

Papiamento or Papiamentu is a Creole language and it is the primary language spoken on the Caribbean islands of Aruba, Curaçao, and Bonaire. Papiamento grew out of the pidgin Portuguese spoken among Sephardic Jews and their slaves who had fled from Brazil. Also a Portuguese Creole (or pidgin) from Cape Verde reached these island, it was brought by the Sephardic Portuguese jews of Cape Verde, and it was a mixture of the Mina Portuguese Creole/Pidgin (a mixture of Cape Verdean Creole/Pidgin with Twi) and "Angolar" Portuguese Creoles/Pidgins (areas of Angola and Congo).

Related Topics:
Aruba - Curaçao - Bonaire - Twi

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Most of the vocabulary is derived from Portuguese and Spanish, and most of them the real origin is unknown due to the great similarity between the two Iberian languages. Linguistic studies have shown that roughly two thirds of the words in Papiamento's present vocabulary are of Spanish or Portuguese origin, a quarter are of Dutch origin, and the rest come from other tongues.

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Saramaccan (Portuguese/English creole)

Descendants of fugitive slaves in former Dutch Guyana (today's Suriname) speak Saramaccan. Like other runaway slaves' Creoles, it combines English, Dutch, Portuguese, and African words; however, it contains a much larger number of words of Portuguese origin than these. Its structure exhibits many similarities to other Portuguese Creoles, even to Portuguese-Indian ones.

Related Topics:
Suriname - English - Dutch - Portuguese

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Jan Voorhoeve (1973), N. Smith (1987), M. F. Goodman (1987), John McWhorter (1996), Salikoko Mufwene (2002), and Derek Bickerton consider Saramaccan to be an English-based creole. SIL Suriname's website and Ian Hancock calls it a Portuguese-based creole. The issue is complicated by the fact that, in the 19th century, English started to have a strong influence on Saramaccan. Most Portuguese original elements are verbs, adverbs, pronouns and everyday objects.

Related Topics:
Jan Voorhoeve - John McWhorter - Salikoko Mufwene - Derek Bickerton - SIL - Suriname - Ian Hancock

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25,000 individuals of the Saramacano tribe and 2,000 of the Matawi tribe speak Saramaccan. It is not known why Saramaccan has Portuguese influence. Some say that they arrived from Western Africa with a Portuguese pidgin or their masters were Portuguese.

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