Cape Verdean Creole


Cape Verdean Creole is a Portuguese-based creole language spoken on the islands of Cape Verde. It is also called Kriolu or Kriol by its native speakers. It is the native creole language of virtually all Cape Verdeans and is used as a second creole language by the Cape Verdean diaspora.
The creole has particular importance for creolistics studies since it is the oldest creole. It is the most widely spoken Portuguese-based creole language.

Name

The correct designation of this creole is Cape Verdean Creole. However, in everyday usage the creole is simply called Kriolu by its speakers. The names Cape Verdean and Cape Verdean language have been proposed for whenever the creole will be standardized.

Origins

The history of Cape Verdean Creole is hard to trace due to a lack of written documentation and to ostracism during the Portuguese administration of Cape Verde.
There are presently three theories about the formation of Creole. The monogenetic theory claims that the creole was formed by the Portuguese by simplifying the Portuguese language in order to make it accessible to African slaves. That is the point of view of authors like Prudent, Waldman, Chaudenson and Lopes da Silva. Authors like Adam and Quint argue that Creole was formed by African slaves using the grammar of Western African languages and replacing the African lexicon with the Portuguese one. Linguists like Chomsky and Bickerton argue that Creole was formed spontaneously, not by slaves from continental Africa, but by the population born in the islands, using the grammar with which all human beings are born; this would explain how creoles located many miles apart have similar grammatical structures, even though they have a different lexical basis.
According to A. Carreira, Cape Verdean Creole was formed from a Portuguese pidgin, on the island of Santiago, starting from the 15th century. That pidgin was then transported to the west coast of Africa by the lançados. From there, that pidgin diverged into two proto-Creoles, one that was the base of all Cape Verdean Creoles, and another that was the base of the Guinea-Bissau Creole.
Cross referencing information regarding the settlement of each island with the linguistic comparisons, it is possible to form some conjectures. The spreading of Cape Verdean Creole within the islands was done in three phases:
In spite of Creole being the first language of nearly all the population in Cape Verde, Portuguese is still the official language. As Portuguese is used in everyday life, Portuguese and Cape Verdean Creole live in a state of diglossia. Due to this overall presence of Portuguese, a decreolization process occurs for all the different Cape Verdean Creole variants.
Check in this fictional text:
In this text, several situations of decreolization / Portuguese intromission can be noted:
The same text "corrected":
As a consequence there is a continuum between basilectal and acrolectal varieties.
In spite of Creole not being officialized, there exists a governmental directive that puts forth the necessary conditions for the officialization of Creole. This officialization has not yet occurred, mostly because the language is not yet standardized, for several reasons:
That is the reason why each speaker when speaking uses their own dialect, their own sociolect, and their own idiolect.
To overcome these problems, some Creole advocates propose the development of two standards: a North standard, centered on the São Vicente variant, and a South standard, centered on that of Santiago. If so, Creole would become a pluricentric language
There exists no complete translation of the Bible. However, the "Asosiason Kabuverdianu pa Traduson di Bíblia" was established with the goal of translating the entire Bible in Kabuverdianu-Sotaventu and Kabuverdianu-Barlaventu. They have translated approximately 40% of the New Testament in the Kabuverdianu-Sotaventu, and they have published Luke and Acts. The publication of Luke has won two awards in Cape Verde. Sérgio Frusoni translated Bartolomeo Rossetti's version of the Romanesco Italian poem Er Vangelo Seconno Noantri, which is a poem based on the Four Gospels. Frusoni translated the poem in the São Vicente Creole, Vangêle contód d'nôs móda.

[|Writing system]

The only writing system officially recognized by the authorities in Cape Verde is called ALUPEC. In spite of having been officially recognized by the government, the ALUPEC is neither officially nor mandatorily used, instead used only by enthusiasts.
In spite of being the only system officially recognized, the same law allows the use of alternative writing models, "as long as they are presented in a systematic and scientific way". As not all users are familiarized with ALUPEC or the IPA, in this article a slightly different system will be used to make it easier for the reader:
The vocabulary of Cape Verdean Creole comes mainly from Portuguese. Although several sources do not agree, the figures oscillate between 90 and 95% of words from Portuguese. The remaining comes from several languages from Western Africa, and the vocabulary from other languages is negligible.

Phonology

Cape Verdean Creole's phonological system comes mainly from 15th-through-17th-century Portuguese. In terms of conservative features, Creole has kept the affricate consonants and which are not in use in today's Portuguese, and the pre-tonic vowels were not reduced as in today's European Portuguese. In terms of innovative features, the phoneme has evolved to and the vowels have undergone several phonetic phenomena.

Vowels

There are eight oral vowels and their corresponding nasal counterparts, making a total of sixteen vowels:

Consonants and semi-vowels

The personal pronoun that represents the subject form of the first person singular has a variable pronunciation according to the islands.
This pronoun comes from the object form of the first person singular in Portuguese mim, and it is phonetically reduced to the sound.
This pronunciation is nowadays found in the Barlavento variants. In the Sotavento variants that consonant was reduced to a simple nasality. For example: m' andâ , m' stâ tâ sintí , m' labába . Before plosive or affricate consonants this nasality becomes homorganic nasal of the following consonant. For ex.: m' bêm , m' têm , m' tchigâ , m' crê .
Speakers who are strongly influenced by the Portuguese language tend to pronounce this pronoun as a nasal vowel úm instead of m.
Before some forms of the verb sêr this pronoun takes back its full form mí, in whatever variant: mí ê , mí éra .
In this article, this pronoun is conventionally written m, no matter the variant.

Grammar

Even though over 90% of Cape Verdean Creole words are derived from Portuguese, the grammar is very different, which makes it extremely difficult for an untrained Portuguese native speaker even to understand a basic conversation. On the other hand, the grammar shows a lot of similarities with other creoles, Portuguese-based or not.

Sentence structure

The basic sentence structure in Creole is SubjectVerbObject. Ex.:
When there are two objects, the indirect object comes first while the direct object comes after, and the sentence structure becomes SubjectVerbIndirect ObjectDirect Object. Ex.:
A feature that makes Cape Verdean Creole closer to other creoles is the possibility of double negation, or sometimes even triple negation. Although double negation is common in Portuguese, triple negation is a little bit uncommon.

Nouns

Gender inflection

Only the animated nouns have gender inflection. Ex.:
In some cases the distinction between sexes is made putting the adjectives mátchu "male" and fémia "female" after the nouns. Ex.:
The nouns in Creole have number inflection only when they are well determined or known in the context. Ex.:
When the noun refers to something in general that noun does not have number inflection. Ex.:
If in a sentence there are several grammatical categories, only the first bears the plural marker. Ex.:
According to their function, the pronouns can be subject pronouns or object pronouns. Furthermore, in each of these functions, according to the position within the sentence the pronouns can be unstressed or stressed.
The unstressed subject pronouns generally bear the function of the subject and come before the verb. Ex.:
The stressed subject pronouns bear the function of some kind of vocative and usually are separated from the verb. Ex.:
The object pronouns, as the name shows, bear the function of the object. The unstressed object pronouns are used with the present-tense forms of verbs. Ex.:
The stressed object pronouns are used with the past-tense forms of verbs, when they are the second pronoun in a series of two pronouns, and after prepositions. Ex.:
When there are two object pronouns, the indirect pronoun comes first while the direct pronoun comes after, and the sentence structure becomes SubjectVerbIndirect PronounDirect Pronoun.
There are no reflexive pronouns. To indicate reflexivity, Creole uses the expression cabéça after the possessive determiner. Ex.:
There are no reciprocal pronouns. To indicate reciprocity, Creole uses the expression cumpanhêru. Ex.:
The verbs have only minimal inflection. They have the same form for all the persons, and the notions of tense, mood and aspect are expressed through the presence of certain morphemes, as in the majority of creoles.
The verbs are generally reduced to two base forms, one for the present, another for the past. The form for the present is the same as the form for the infinitive, that in turn comes, in the majority of the verbs, from the infinitive in Portuguese but without the final r. Ex.: cantâ , mexê , partí , compô , *lumbú . The form for the past is formed from the infinitive to which is joined the particle for the past ~ba. Ex.: cantába, mexêba, partíba, compôba, *lumbúba . It is noteworthy that the Upper Guinea creoles put the past tense marker after the verbs, and not before like the majority of creoles.
It is important to mention that in the Santiago variant, the stress goes back to before the last syllable in the present tense forms of the verbs. Therefore, we have: cánta instead of cantâ, mêxe or mêxi instead of mexê, pârti instead of partí, cômpo or cômpu instead of compô, búmbu instead of bumbú. In the pronominal forms, however, the stress remains on the last syllable: cantâ-m, mexê-bu, partí-'l, compô-nu, bumbú-'s.

Regular verbs

As said before, the regular verbs are reduced to a form for the present tense and a form for the past tense, and the notions of mood and aspect are expressed through verbal actualizers.
The following table shows a paradigm of the indicative mood with the verb dâ "to give" in the first-person singular:
Present TensePast Tense
Perfective aspectM' dâM' dába
Imperfective aspectM' tâ dâM' tâ dába
Progressive aspectM' stâ tâ dâM' stába tâ da

The perfective aspect of the present is used when the speech refers to present situations, but that are finished, that are complete. Ex.:
The imperfective aspect of the present is used when the speech refers to present situations, but that are not finished yet, that are incomplete. Ex.:
The progressive aspect of the present is used when the speech refers to present situations that are happening in a continuous, uninterrupted way. Ex.:
There is no specific form for the future. The future of the present may be expressed through three resources:
  1. Using the imperfective of the present but bearing the function of the future. Ex.: M' tâ dâ manhã. liter. "I give tomorrow."
  2. Using the auxiliary verb "to go". Ex.: M' tâ bái dâ. liter. "I go to give."
  3. Using a periphrasis showing an eventuality. Ex.: M' ál dâ. "I will give."
The perfective aspect of the past is used when the speech refers to past situations that were finished, or complete. Ex.:
The imperfective aspect of the past is used when the speech refers to past situations that were not finished yet, or incomplete. Ex.:
The progressive aspect of the past is used when the speech refers to past situations that were happening in a continuous and uninterrupted way. Ex.:
There is no specific form for the future. The future of the past may be expressed through three resources:
  1. Using the imperfective of the past but bearing the function of the future. Ex.: M' tâ dába manhã. liter. "I gave tomorrow."
  2. Using the auxiliary verb "to go". Ex.: M' tâ bába dâ. liter. "I went to give."
  3. Using a periphrasis showing an eventuality. Ex.: M' ál dába. m al "I would give."
The remaining moodssubjunctive, conditional, eventualdo not have different aspects, only present and past tense, except the injunctive mood which has only the present tense.

Irregular verbs

There is a group of verbs that do not follow the paradigmatic model presented above. They are the auxiliary verbs sêr "to be", stâ "to be", têm "to have" and tenê "to have", and the modal verbs crê "to want", sabê "to know", podê "can", devê "must" and mestê "to need".
There exist two registers for these verbs.
In the first register there are only two forms for the verbs: one for the present and one for the past. However, [on the contrary of regular verbs, when the base form is used alone it represents the imperfective aspect and not the perfective aspect. Therefore, mí ê, m' têm, m' crê, m' sabê mean "I am, I have, I want, I know", and not "I've been, I've had, I've wanted, I've known", as it would be expected. Parallelly, mí éra, m' têmba, m' crêba, m' sabêba mean "I was, I had, I wanted, I knew", and not "I had been, I had had, I had wanted, I had known", as would be expected.
In the second register the system has been enriched with other forms influenced by Portuguese. Therefore, we have:
There is a parallelism between the pair of the verbs sêr / stâ "to be" and the pair of the verbs têm / tenê "to have".
permanenttemporary
copulative verbssêrstâ
possessive verbstêmtenê

Passive

Cape Verdean Creole has two voices. The active voice is used when the subject is explicit. The passive voice is used when the subject is indeterminate or unknown. There is also two forms for the passive. The form for the present is made with the infinitive to which is joined the particle ~du. The form for the past is made with the infinitive to which is joined the particle ~da. Ex.:
To negate a verb, the negative adverb câ is used after the subject and before any verbal actualizer. Ex.:
In the Santo Antão variant, the negative adverb is n. Ex.:
In imperative sentences the negative adverb câ is always in the beginning. Ex.:
And in the Santo Antão variant:
Adjectives in Creole almost always come after the noun. Only the animated nouns demand gender inflection in their adjectives. Ex.:
The adjectives for unanimated nouns have the same form as the masculine adjectives. Ex.:
In general the plural marker does not appear on adjectives since it comes in a preceding grammatical category.

Determiners

In Creole there are no definite articles. If it is absolutely necessary to determine the noun, the demonstrative determiners are used instead.
For the indefinite articles there are two forms, one for the singular, another for the plural:
The possessive determiners have number inflexion, but the plural refers to the objects possessed, and not to the owners. Ex.:
The demonstrative determiners have only two degrees of proximity: close to the speaker and away from the speaker.

Designatives

Creole possesses a special grammatical category for presenting or announcing something. It appears in two forms, one to present something near, and another to present something far. Ex.:
In spite of Cape Verde's small size, each island has developed its own way of speaking Creole. Each of these nine ways is justifiably a different dialect, but the scholars in Cape Verde usually call them "variants". These variants can be classified into two branches: in the South there are the Sotavento Creoles, which comprise the Brava, Fogo, Santiago and Maio variants; in the North there are the Barlavento Creoles, which comprise the Boa Vista, Sal, São Nicolau, São Vicente and Santo Antão variants.
Since some lexical forms of Cape Verdean Creole can be different according to each variant, the words and the sentences in this article will be presented in compromise model, a kind of "middle Creole", in order to ease the understanding and in order not to favor any variant. Whenever it will be necessary the phonemic transcription will be shown immediately after the word.
For the writing system, check the section Writing system.
From a linguistic point of view, the most important variants are the Fogo, Santiago, São Nicolau and Santo Antão ones, and any deep study of Creole should approach at least these four. They are the only islands that have received slaves directly from the African continent, that possess the most conservative linguistic features, and that are the most distinct from each other.
From a social point of view, the most important variants are the Santiago and São Vicente ones, and any light study of Creole should approach at least these two. They are the variants of the two bigger cities, the variants with the greatest number of speakers, and the variants with a glottophagist tendency over the neighboring ones.
These variants have significant literature:
;Dialectal differences:

Sotavento

The Sotavento Creoles are spoken in the Sotavento Islands. Some characteristics:
;Brava
Brava Creole is spoken mainly on Brava Island. Speakers number 8,000. One of the least spoken being seventh place and one of the firsts to have written literature, in which Eugénio Tavares wrote some of his poems.
Besides the main characteristics of Sotavento Creoles, Brava Creole has the following:
;Fogo
Fogo Creole is spoken mainly in the Fogo of Cape Verde. It has around 50,000 speakers or nearly 5% of Cape Verdean Creole speakers including the diaspora's second language speakers. The rankings of this form of Cape Verdean Creole is fourth after Santo Antão and ahead of Sal.
Besides the main characteristics of Sotavento Creoles, Fogo has the following:
;Maio
Maio Creole is spoken mainly in the Maio Island. It numbers the entire island population which includes a small part which also speaks Portuguese.
It is one of the least spoken Cape Verdean Creole and is after Brava and ahead of Boa Vista.
Besides the main characteristics of Sotavento Creoles, Maio Creole has the following:
;Santiago
Santiago Creole is spoken mainly on the Santiago Island of Cape Verde, including the capital of the country, Praia.
Besides the main characteristics of Sotavento Creoles, Santiago Creole has the following:
The Barlavento Creoles are spoken in the Barlavento Islands. Some characteristics:
Note: In São Nicolau, along with táva + V also subsists the older form tá V+ba.
  • The personal pronoun for the second person of the plural is b'sôt.
  • The unstressed vowels and frequently disappear. Ex.: c'mádr for cumádri "midwife", v'lúd for vilúdu "velvet", c'dí for cudí "to answer", tch'gâ for tchigâ "to arrive".
  • Raising of the stressed sound to in words that used to end with the sound. Ex.: ólt from áltu "tall", cónd from cándu "when", macóc from macácu "monkey". Also with pronouns: b'tó-b from botá-bu "throw you".
;Boa Vista
Boa Vista Creole is spoken mainly in the Boa Vista Island. Speakers number 5,000, and is the least spoken form of Creole in the language. Literature is rarely recorded but one of the speakers who was born on the island is Germano Almeida.
Besides the main characteristics of Barlavento Creoles, Boa Vista Creole has the following:
;Sal
Sal Creole is spoken mainly in the island of Sal. Speakers number 15,000.
Besides the main characteristics of Barlavento Creoles, Sal Creole has the following:
;Santo Antão
Santo Antão Creole is spoken mainly in the Santo Antão Island. It is ranked third of nine in the number of speakers and it is before Fogo and after the neighbouring São Vicente.
Besides the main characteristics of Barlavento Creoles, Santo Antão Creole has the following:
;São Nicolau
São Nicolau Creole is spoken mainly in the São Nicolau Island. There are 15,000 speakers, and is the fifth most spoken form of creole in the language. Literature is rarely recorded but the form of the Capeverdean Creole has been recorded in music, one of them is on caboverde.com on the page featuring this island.
Besides the main characteristics of Barlavento Creoles, São Nicolau Creole has the following:
;São Vicente
São Vicente Creole is spoken mainly in the São Vicente Island. It has about 80,000 to 100,000 speakers, primarily in the São Vicente island, but also in a large segment of the Cape Verdean diaspora population. It is the second most widely spoken Cape Verdean dialect. It has produced literature from a lot of writers and musicians including Sergio Frusoni and many more.
Besides the main characteristics of Barlavento Creoles, São Vicente Creole has the following:
For more examples check the :pt:Anexo:Lista de Swadesh - Crioulo cabo-verdiano|Swadesh List of Cape Verdean Creole.

Cape Verdean Creole examples

Example 1 (Santiago variant)

Excerpt of the lyrics of Dôci Guérra from Antero Simas. The full lyrics may be found in .

Example 2 (São Vicente variant)

Excerpt of the lyrics of Nôs Ráça from Manuel d' Novas. The full lyrics may be found in .

Example 3

Free translation of the 1st article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.