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Papiamento or Papiamentu  is a creole language spoken in the Dutch Caribbean. It is the most-widely spoken language on the Caribbean ABC islands, having official status in Aruba and Curaçao. Papiamento is also a recognized language in the Dutch public bodies of Bonaire, Sint-Eustatius and Saba.

Papiamento is largely based on Portuguese and Spanish and has a considerable influence coming from the Dutch language. Because of lexical similarities between Portuguese and Spanish, it is difficult to distinguish the exact origin of each word. Though there are different theories about its origins, nowadays most linguists believe that Papiamento has originated from the West African coasts, as it has great similarities with Cape Verdean Creole and Guinea-Bissau Creole.

History
Since ancient times, the ABC islands were populated by the Caquetio Arawak native indians. In 1499 the islands were discovered by the Spaniards under Alonso de Ojeda. From 1500 onwards, a small group of Spaniards settled here and held the island for over a 100 years. During this time the indigenous population learned to speak the Spanish of the occupiers.

In 1634 Johannes van Walbeeck sailed to Curaçao with eight vessels of the Dutch West India Company and the Netherlands took possession of the islands. Most of the existing Caquetio Arawak and Spanish population left to the continent. Dutch settlers began to arrive and slaves were brought over from West Africa by Portuguese speaking slave traders. Shiploads of slaves arrived, speaking West African and Portuguese-based Creole and Pidgin languages. The seeds of Papiamento had reached Curaçao.

In 1659 the Portuguese reconquered the Dutch-held territories in Northeast Brazil,and ruler Peter Stuyvesant was expelled. This caused Portuguese and Judaeo-Portuguese speaking Sephardic Jews and their Portuguese-speaking Dutch allies in those lands to flee to the ABC islands from religious persecution. Sephardic Jews played a prominent role in the development of Papiamento. Many early residents of Curaçao were Sephardic Jews either from Portugal, Amsterdam, Cape Verde or Portuguese Brazil. From 1700 onwards, as the Jewish became the prime merchants in the area, everyday trading was conducted in Papiamento.

Spanish speakers frequented the island for trade, which added to the influence of Spanish on the creole. The government and schooling in Dutch had a considerable influence on the language as well.

The first official documents in Papiamento can be seen in the early 18th century. In the 19th century, most materials in the islands were written in Papiamento including Roman Catholic schoolbooks and hymnals. The first Papiamento newspaper was published in 1871 and was titled Civilisado (The Civilized)

Local development theory
There are various local development theories. One such theory proposes that Papiamento developed in the Caribbean from an original Portuguese-African pidgin used for communication between African slaves and Portuguese slave traders, with later Dutch and Spanish (and even some Arawak) influences.

Another theory is that Papiamento first evolved from the use in this region since 1499 of 'lenguas' and the first Repopulation of the ABC islands by the Spanish by the Cédula real decreed in November 1525, in which Juan Martinez de Ampués, factor of Española, had been granted the right to repopulate the depopulated Islas inútiles of Oroba, Islas de los Gigantes and Buon Aire. The evolution of Papiamento continued under the Dutch colonization under the influence of the 16th century Dutch, Portuguese (Brazilian) and Native American languages (Arawak en Taíno) with the second repopulation of these ABC islands under Peter Stuyvesant, who arrived here from the ex-Dutch Brazilian colonies.

The Judaeo-Portuguese population of the ABC islands increased substantially after 1654, when the Portuguese recovered the Dutch-held territories in Northeast Brazil – causing most of the Portuguese-speaking Jews and their Portuguese-speaking Dutch allies and Dutch-speaking Portuguese Brazilian allies in those lands to flee from religious persecution. The precise role of Sephardic Jews in the early development is unclear, but it is certain that Jews played a prominent role in the later development of Papiamento. Many early residents of Curaçao were Sephardic Jews either from Portugal, Spain, Cape Verde or Portuguese Brazil. Also, after the Eighty Years' War, a group of Sephardic Jews immigrated from Amsterdam. Therefore, it can be assumed that Judaeo-Portuguese was brought to the island of Curaçao, where it gradually spread to other parts of the community. As the Jewish community became the prime merchants and traders in the area, business and everyday trading was conducted in Papiamento. While various nations owned the island and official languages changed with ownership, Papiamento became the constant language of the residents. When Netherlands opened economic ties with Spanish colonies in what are now Venezuela and Colombia in the 18th century the students on Curaçao, Aruba, and Bonaire were taught predominantly in Spanish, Spanish began to influence the creole language. Since there was a continuous Latinization process (Hoetink, 1987), even the elite Dutch-Protestant settlers eventually served better in Spanish than in Dutch. A wealth of local Spanish-language publications in the nineteenth century testify to this.

European and African origin theory
Peter Stuyvesant's appointment to the ABC islands followed his service in Brazil. He brought Indians, soldiers, etc. from Brazil to Curaçao as well as to New Netherland. Stuyvesant's Resolution Book shows the multi-ethnic makeup of the garrison and the use of local Indians: "... whereas the number of Indians, together with those of Aruba and Bonnairo, have increased here by half, and we have learned that they frequently ride ..." They communicated with each other in 'Papiamento' a language originating when the first Europeans began to arrive on these islands under Ojeda, Juan de Ampues, Bejarano and mixing with the natives. Stuyvesant also took some Esopus Indians captives in New Netherland and brought them as slaves to Curaçao. There was little Dutch government activity in the management of DWI because during the period 1568–1648, they were actively fighting for their independence and were not in a position to manage their colonies.

A more recent theory holds that the origins of Papiamento lie in the Afro-Portuguese creoles that arose almost a century earlier, in the west coast of Africa and in the Portuguese Cape Verde islands. From the 16th to the late 17th century, most of the slaves taken to the Caribbean came from Portuguese trading posts ("factories") in those regions. Around those ports several Portuguese-African pidgin and creole languages developed, such as Cape Verdean Creole, Guinea-Bissau Creole, Angolar and Forro (from São Tomé). These sister languages bear strong resemblance with Papiamento. According to this theory, Papiamento was derived from one or more of these older creoles or their predecessors, that was brought to the ABC islands by slaves and traders from Cape Verde and West Africa.

The similarity between Papiamento and the other Afro-Portuguese creoles can be seen in the same pronouns used: "mi", "bo", "el", "nos", "bos(o)", these words being Portuguese based. In Afro-Portuguese creoles we often see a shift from the "v" to "b" and from "o" to "u". Look at the word "bientu" ("wind") instead of "viento". In creole and also in Spanish, the "v" is pronounced as a "b". In creole it is also written as a "b". The last "o" changes in an "u", just like in Portuguese pronunciation, where the last "o" in a word is pronounced as an "u".

Guene (the name comes from "Guinea") was a secret language, that was used by slaves on the plantations of the landhouses of West Curaçao. There were about one hundred Guene songs that were sung to make the work lighter. But because of the secret character of Guene, it never had much influence on Papiamento.

Linguistic and historical ties with Upper Guinea Portuguese Creole
Current research on the origins of Papiamento focuses specifically on the linguistic and historical relationships between Papiamento and Upper Guinea Portuguese Creole as spoken on the Santiago island of Cape Verde and in Guinea-Bissau and Casamance. Elaborating on comparisons done by Martinus (1996) and Quint (2000), Jacobs (2008, 2009a, 2009b ) defends the hypothesis that Papiamento is a relexified offshoot of an early Upper Guinea Portuguese Creole variety, transferred from Senegambia to Curaçao in the second half of the 17th century, a period in which the Dutch controlled the harbour of Gorée, just below the tip of the Cape Verde Peninsula. On Curaçao, this variety underwent internal changes as well as contact-induced changes at all levels of the grammar (though particularly in the lexicon) due to contact with Spanish and, to a lesser extent, Dutch. These changes notwithstanding, the morpho-syntactic framework of Papiamento is still remarkably close to that of the Upper Guinea Creoles of Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau.