Origins of a Creole: The History of Papiamentu and Its African Ties (Language Contact and Bilingualism [LCB] Book 3)

This study embarks on the intriguing quest for the origins of the Caribbean creole language Papiamentu. In the literature on the issue, widely diverging hypotheses have been advanced, but scholars have not come close to a consensus. The present study casts new and long-lasting light on the issue, putting forward compelling interdisciplinary evidence that Papiamentu is genetically related to the Portuguese-based creoles of the Cape Verde Islands, Guinea-Bissau, and Casamance (Senegal). Following the trans-Atlantic transfer of native speakers to Curaçao in the latter half of the 17th century, the Portuguese-based proto-variety underwent a far-reaching process of relexification towards Spanish, affecting the basic vocabulary while leaving intact the original phonology, morphology, and syntax. Papiamentu is thus shown to constitute a case of 'language contact reduplicated' in that a creole underwent a second significant restructuring process (relexification). These explicit claims and their rigorous underpinning will set standards for both the study of Papiamentu and creole studies at large and will be received with great interest in the wider field of contact linguistics. Acknowledgements 6 Abbreviations 14 Introduction 16 Presentation of the languages considered in the present study 18 Papiamentu (PA) 18 Cape Verdean Creole (CV) 21 The Creole of Guinea-Bissau and Casamance (GBC) 23 Hypothesis examined in the present study 24 Methodological remarks 25 Linguistic evidence 25 Negative evidence 26 Historical evidence 29 Structure of the present study 29 1 Critical review of the literature on the origins of Papiamentu 32 Introduction 32 1.1. From Schabel (1704) to Lenz (1928) 33 1.2. Afro-Portuguese hypotheses: from Lenz (1928) to monogenesis 35 1.3. Spanish hypotheses 39 1.4. Critical discussion of the Spanish hypotheses 42 1.4.1. Linguistic continuity between the pre- and post-1634 period? 43 1.4.2. Linguistic evidence against Old Spanish in PA’s superstate 44 1.4.3. About the tendency to attribute the Portuguese to other Hispanic varieties 44 1.5. PA birth among the Sephardim? 45 1.5.1. On the linguistic profile of the early Curaçaoan Sephardim 46 1.5.2. Demographic arguments against a PA birth among the Sephardim 51 1.6. Where does the Portuguese come from? 54 1.6.1. A shared origin for all Afro-Iberian creoles in the Caribbean? 54 1.6.2. Goodman’s Brazilian Creole Hypothesis 58 1.6.3. Gulf of Guinea Portuguese-based Creole 59 1.6.4. Upper Guinea Portuguese-based Creole 61 1.7. Summary 63 2 Phonology 66 Introduction 66 2.1. Vowel features 67 2.1.1. Vowel raising 67 2.1.2. Rounding of unstressed vowels 70 2.1.3. Vowel harmony 71 2.1.4. Monophthongs 72 2.2. Consonant features 77 2.2.1. The voiceless palatal fricative /ʃ/ in PA and Upper Guinea PC 77 2.2.2. Retention of Old Portuguese voiceless affricate /tʃ/ in PA and Upper Guinea PC 83 2.2.3. Rejection of voiced fricatives in PA and Upper Guinea PC 84 2.2.4. The lack of lambdacism (/r/ > /l/) in PA and Upper Guinea PC 87 2.2.5. Rhotacism (/d/ > /r/) 87 2.3. Syllabic restructuring 88 2.3.1. Apheresis of prefixes 89 2.3.2. Vowel epenthesis 90 2.3.3. Metathesis of the /r/ 91 2.3.4. Negative evidence: syllabic restructuring in PLQ and Gulf of Guinea PC 92 2.4. Paroxytonic verb stress in PA and SCV 93 2.4.1. Verb stress in GBC 95 2.4.2. On the diachrony of paroxytonic verb stress in PA and SCV 95 2.5. Final remarks on phonology 96 3 Selected parts of speech 98 Introduction 98 3.1. Personal pronouns 98 3.1.1. 1sg (a)mi 101 3.1.2. Emphatic a- subject pronouns 101 3.1.3. 2pl SCV nhos 103 3.1.4. Digression: 2sg polite pronouns in PA 104 3.1.5. PA nan 105 3.1.6. Final remarks on pronouns 110 3.2. Prepositions 110 3.2.1. PA / Upper Guinea PC di 112 3.2.2. PA / Upper Guinea PC na 113 3.2.3. PA / Upper Guinea PC te 114 3.2.4. PA / Upper Guinea PC riba (di) 115 3.2.5. PA / Upper Guinea PC pa 116 3.2.6. Zero preposition with motion verb + place 118 3.2.7. Reanalysis of Iberian prepositions/adverbs ‘in front of’ and ‘behind’ as nouns 119 3.2.8. Composed prepositions 121 3.2.9. A reassessment of the time-depth of prepositions in PA 128 3.2.10. Final remarks on prepositions 129 3.3. Interrogatives 129 3.3.1. Equally transparent interrogative paradigms 131 3.3.2. PA: Portuguese rather than Spanish etyma 131 3.3.3. Early PA *kantu, *kal 131 3.3.4. PA unda, SCV unde and GBC nunde 132 3.3.5. PA / Upper Guinea PC ken 132 3.4. Conjunctions 133 3.4.1. Coordinate conjunctions 133 3.4.2. Subordinate conjunctions 135 3.4.3. Final remarks on conjunctions 144 3.5. Miscellaneous 144 3.5.1. Reciprocity and reflexivity 144 3.5.2. The deictic marker Early PA / Upper Guinea PC es 149 3.5.3. Negation 154 4 Morphology 158 Introduction 158 4.1. Derivational morphology 159 4.1.1. PA -mentu 159 4.1.2. PA -dó 160 4.1.3. Upper Guinea PC -mentu / -dor 160 4.1.4. The suffix -dadi in Early PA texts 164 4.2. Inflectional morphology 165 4.2.1. The diachrony of PA’s past participle morpheme -/Ø/ 166 4.2.2. The regularization of past participle morphology in PA and Upper Guinea PC 169 4.3. Passivization in (Early) PA and Upper Guinea PC 170 4.3.1. Passivization in present-day PA 170 4.3.2. Passivization in Upper Guinea PC 171 4.3.3. Auxiliary-less passives in Early PA texts 172 4.3.4. Digression: On the reliability of Early PA evangelical texts 177 4.3.5. Auxiliary-less passives (/passive verbs) in present-day Papiamentu 178 4.3.6. On the incorporation of wòrdu and ser 181 4.3.7. Digression: The presumed non-nativeness of passives in PA 183 4.3.8. Final remarks on passivization in PA and Upper Guinea PC 183 4.4. Final remarks on morphology 184 5 Verbal system 186 Introduction 186 5.1. PA / Upper Guinea PC preverbal ta 187 5.1.1. Analyzing CV ta as a progressive aspect marker 188 5.1.2. Analyzing PA ta as [+imperfective], rather than [+present] 201 5.1.3. Final remarks on PA / Upper Guinea PC preverbal ta 207 5.2. The diachrony of the PA perfective past marker a 208 5.3. Future tense marking in PA and Upper Guinea PC 212 5.3.1. The PA future tense marker lo vs. its absence in Upper Guinea PC 213 5.3.2. On the origin of PA lo 215 5.3.3. The diachrony of future tense marking in PA and Upper Guinea PC 218 5.3.4. Digression: SCV al and PA lo 222 5.4. PA / BaCV taba – tabata 223 5.4.1. Digression: On the diachrony of preverbal taba and postverbal -ba 226 5.5. The issue of relative versus absolute tense marking in PA 229 5.6. A comparison of stative verbs in PA and SCV 232 5.6.1. The stative – nonstative distinction in creoles 232 5.6.2. Strong vs. weak stative verbs 233 5.6.3. The class of strong stative verbs 234 5.6.4. The class of weak stative verbs 236 5.6.5. Contrastive analysis 238 5.6.6. Digression: The case of GBC 240 5.7. Auxiliary verbs 241 5.7.1. Modal auxiliaries 242 5.7.2. Copular verbs 245 5.7.3. Other auxiliaries 255 5.7.4. Final remarks on auxiliary verbs 269 5.8. Final remarks on the verbal system 270 6 Summary and interim analysis of the linguistic results 272 Introduction 272 6.1. Predominance of Portuguese-derived function words in PA 272 6.2. Structural overlap between PA and Upper Guinea PC 274 6.3. Negative evidence from PLQ and Gulf of Guinea PC 275 6.3.1. Digression: What sets PA and Upper Guinea PC apart from Gulf of Guinea PC 276 6.4. Old Portuguese features in PA and Upper Guinea PC 279 6.5. The value of historical PA and Upper Guinea PC texts 280 6.6. West-Atlantic and Mande features in PA and Upper Guinea PC 281 7 The historical ties between Upper Guinea and Curaçao 284 Introduction 284 7.1. On the presumed insignificance of Upper Guinea to the history of Curaçao 285 7.2. The Dutch presence in Senegambia in the 17th century 288 7.2.1. The Dutch in Gorée 292 7.2.2. The Dutch on the Petite Côte (Rufisque, Portudal and Joal) 294 7.2.3. The loss of Gorée and the Dutch retreat from Senegambia 296 7.2.4. The Dutch ties with Cacheu and the Cape Verde Islands 300 7.2.5. Final remarks on the Dutch presence in Senegambia in the 17th century 304 7.3. Dutch slave trade from Upper Guinea to Curaçao 304 7.3.1. Other factors relevant to the Dutch slave trade from Upper Guinea to Curaçao 306 7.4. Sephardic Jewish networks linking Upper Guinea to Curaçao 309 7.4.1. Ties between the Sephardim in Upper Guinea and Amsterdam 311 7.4.2. Sephardim networks directly linking Upper Guinea to Curaçao 312 7.4.3. Partnership between the Dutch WIC and the Sephardim 314 7.5. Diffusion of Upper Guinea PC to the mainland, 16th and 17th centuries 315 7.6. Summary, conclusions, and final remarks 319 8 Discussion: The development from Upper Guinea PC to Papiamentu 322 Introduction 322 8.1. Sociolinguistic considerations 323 8.1.1. On the choice of slaves in the early period of Curaçao’s settlement 323 8.1.2. Sociolinguistic issues relevant to the consolidation of Upper Guinea PC on Curaçao and its diffusion among the (slave) population 327 8.2. From Upper Guinea PC to PA: a case of rapid relexification towards Spanish 334 8.2.1. PA, monogenesis, and the notion of relexification in creole studies 335 8.2.2. From Upper Guinea PC to PA: ‘relexification’ rather than ‘heavy borrowing’ 337 8.2.3. Analyzing Papiamentu as a mixed language 342 8.2.4. The source(s) of the Spanish elements in PA’s basic content vocabulary 346 8.3. Summary of the discussion 350 9 Conclusions 352 Appendices 354 References 360 Index 400 Presentation Of The Languages Considered In The Present Study; Papiamentu (pa); Cape Verdean Creole (cv); The Creole Of Guinea-bissau And Casamance (gbc); Hypothesis Examined In The Present Study; Methodological Remarks; Linguistic Evidence; Negative Evidence; Historical Evidence; Structure Of The Present Study; 1 Critical Review Of The Literature On The Origins Of Papiamentu; Introduction; 1.1. From Schabel (1704) To Lenz (1928); 1.2. Afro-portuguese Hypotheses: From Lenz (1928) To Monogenesis; 1.3. Spanish Hypotheses 1.4. Critical Discussion Of The Spanish Hypotheses1.4.1. Linguistic Continuity Between The Pre- And Post-1634 Period?; 1.4.2. Linguistic Evidence Against Old Spanish In Pa's Superstate; 1.4.3. About The Tendency To Attribute The Portuguese To Other Hispanic Varieties; 1.5. Pa Birth Among The Sephardim?; 1.5.1. On The Linguistic Profile Of The Early Curaçaoan Sephardim; 1.5.2. Demographic Arguments Against A Pa Birth Among The Sephardim; 1.6. Where Does The Portuguese Come From?; 1.6.1. A Shared Origin For All Afro-iberian Creoles In The Caribbean?; 1.6.2. Goodman's Brazilian Creole Hypothesis 1.6.3. Gulf Of Guinea Portuguese-based Creole1.6.4. Upper Guinea Portuguese-based Creole; 1.7. Summary; 2 Phonology; Introduction; 2.1. Vowel Features; 2.1.1. Vowel Raising; 2.1.2. Rounding Of Unstressed Vowels; 2.1.3. Vowel Harmony; 2.1.4. Monophthongs; 2.2. Consonant Features; 2.2.1. The Voiceless Palatal Fricative /{u222b}/ In Pa And Upper Guinea Pc; 2.2.2. Retention Of Old Portuguese Voiceless Affricate /t{u222b}/ In Pa And Upper Guinea Pc; 2.2.3. Rejection Of Voiced Fricatives In Pa And Upper Guinea Pc; 2.2.4. The Lack Of Lambdacism (/r/ > /l/) In Pa And Upper Guinea Pc; 2.2.5. Rhotacism (/d/ > /r/) 2.3. Syllabic Restructuring2.3.1. Apheresis Of Prefixes; 2.3.2. Vowel Epenthesis; 2.3.3. Metathesis Of The /r/; 2.3.4. Negative Evidence: Syllabic Restructuring In Plq And Gulf Of Guinea Pc; 2.4. Paroxytonic Verb Stress In Pa And Scv; 2.4.1. Verb Stress In Gbc; 2.4.2. On The Diachrony Of Paroxytonic Verb Stress In Pa And Scv; 2.5. Final Remarks On Phonology; 3 Selected Parts Of Speech; Introduction; 3.1. Personal Pronouns; 3.1.1. 1sg (a)mi; 3.1.2. Emphatic A- Subject Pronouns; 3.1.3. 2pl Scv Nhos; 3.1.4. Digression: 2sg Polite Pronouns In Pa; 3.1.5. Pa Nan; 3.1.6. Final Remarks On Pronouns 3.2. Prepositions3.2.1. Pa / Upper Guinea Pc Di; 3.2.2. Pa / Upper Guinea Pc Na; 3.2.3. Pa / Upper Guinea Pc Te; 3.2.4. Pa / Upper Guinea Pc Riba (di); 3.2.5. Pa / Upper Guinea Pc Pa; 3.2.6. Zero Preposition With Motion Verb + Place; 3.2.7. Reanalysis Of Iberian Prepositions/adverbs 'in Front Of' And 'behind' As Nouns; 3.2.8. Composed Prepositions; 3.2.9. A Reassessment Of The Time-depth Of Prepositions In Pa; 3.2.10. Final Remarks On Prepositions; 3.3. Interrogatives; 3.3.1. Equally Transparent Interrogative Paradigms; 3.3.2. Pa: Portuguese Rather Than Spanish Etyma 3.3.3. Early Pa *kantu, *kal By Bart Jacobs. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. This study embarks on the intriguing quest for the origins of the Caribbean creole language Papiamentu, casting new and long-lasting light on the issue. Embedding exhaustive and rigorous linguistic comparisons in a detailed and novel historical framework, the study convincingly argues that Papiamentu is genetically related to the Portuguese-based creoles of the Cape Verde Islands, Guinea-Bissau, and Casamance (Senegal). Bart Jacobs, University of Konstanz, Germany