/papjəˈmɛntəʊ/, U.S. /ˌpæpjəˈmɛnˌtoʊ/, 1900s– Papiamentoe, 1900s– Papiamentu. Also with lower-case initial.Papiamentun.
/ˌpapjəˈmɛntuː/, U.S. /ˌpɑpjəˈmɛnˌtu//papjəˈmɛntəʊ/, U.S. /ˌpæpjəˈmɛnˌtoʊ/, 1900s– Papiamentoe, 1900s– Papiamentu. Also with lower-case initial. A Portuguese-based creole language with large Spanish admixture, spoken and written in the islands of Curaçao, Aruba, and Bonaire in the Netherlands Antilles.As well as Portuguese and Spanish, Papiamentu also includes significant Dutch and English elements.It is believed that Papiamentu originated in an Upper Guinea Portuguese creole and was carried across the Atlantic to the Netherlands Antilles with the slave trade in the 17th cent.; it shares several significant features with Cape Verdean Creole and Guinea-Bissau Creole.
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the mind > language > languages of the world > pidgins and creoles > [noun] > other spec.
trade language1662
lingua franca1666
Mobilian1840
lingua geral1841
Nago1884
Papiamentu1895
Police Motu1933
Sango1948
Macanese1962
1895 W. Robinson Flying Trip to Tropics ii. 20 The natives speak a mongrel dialect called ‘Papamiento’, and even have several papers printed in it.
1903 I. Starr Gardens of Caribbees II. vi. 177 This curious language—‘Papaimiento’, it is called.
1956 Publ. Amer. Dial. Soc. xxvi. 11 The derivative of Spanish spoken in Curaçao (called Papiamentu or Papiamento), of French in Haïti (Creole),..are..examples of languages which can either be regarded as dialects of the colonial languages or as new languages of their own.
1972 J. L. Dillard Black Eng. i. 24 Some of them [sc. pidgin and creole languages] are vehicles of education and literature, like Papiamento, whose speakers have profited from an enlightened Dutch attitude toward languages.
1988 Amer. Speech 63 363 On Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao Papiamentu and Spanish predominate.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2005; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1895