Papiamento

High school (ages 12+)
People & Society

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/papiamento

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What is the geographic distribution?Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao (Dutch Caribbean)
2. What is the primary lexical source?15th and 16th-century Portuguese
3. Where is Papiamento spoken?It is spoken on the Dutch Caribbean islands of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao.
4. Why does Papiamento sound like Spanish and Portuguese?Because it started from Portuguese and later borrowed many words from Spanish and Dutch, so it sounds like both languages.

Creolization: The process by which a pidgin language, used between groups with no common language, becomes the native language of a community.
Lexical Similarity: The degree to which the vocabulary of two languages or dialects resembles each other.
Sociolinguistics: The study of language in relation to society, including how social factors influence language use and vice versa.