Languages and “crioulidade” (Creole Identity)
- Creole language
“Crioulidade” (Creole identity) is a new concept generated in Cape Verde, and exported from there to Brazil and the Caribbean, and it stems from two cultural forces that emerged from the conditions in which the country was populated and developed its own identity: racial mixing and a new common language for all the Cape Verdeans - Creole.
Creole emerged right at the start, during the first years of population at the end of the 15th Century, due the the urgent need of understanding between the slaves, who came from numerous tribes from Guinea, and the European settlers, who came principally from Portugal. Naturally Portuguese, known as “reinol” or the language of the kingdom, was the basic material for constructing this language, which was surprisingly simple and clear, based as it was on the foundation of the day-to-day contact between all the participants in the process, which started with a classic pidgin for communication in trade, then evolving into a communication system capable of expressing a rich variety of ideas and feelings, which could generate a linguistic richness of expression, such as the “mornas”.
Creole is technically known as a neo-Latin language. It can be traced back directly to Portuguese, and there has been interest recently in studies to detect the presence of residues from archaic Portuguese.
The fervent desire to establish Creole as the official language gave rise to a “no man’s land” phenomenon in education, meaning that a significant number of pupils were in a critical situation of, on one hand, not learning Portuguese, which had not yet ceased to be the official language in Cape Verde, and, on the other hand, not being able to express themselves in Creole. This was a situation that deserved immediate attention, as there was a risk of leaving a generation excluded from access to culture. It was necessary to apply the standard in the Cape Verde Constitution, by creating conditions for Creole to also become an official language of the country, on a level with Portuguese.
“Crioulidade” (Creole identity) is a new concept generated in Cape Verde, and exported from there to Brazil and the Caribbean, and it stems from two cultural forces that emerged from the conditions in which the country was populated and developed its own identity: racial mixing and a new common language for all the Cape Verdeans - Creole.
Creole emerged right at the start, during the first years of population at the end of the 15th Century, due the the urgent need of understanding between the slaves, who came from numerous tribes from Guinea, and the European settlers, who came principally from Portugal. Naturally Portuguese, known as “reinol” or the language of the kingdom, was the basic material for constructing this language, which was surprisingly simple and clear, based as it was on the foundation of the day-to-day contact between all the participants in the process, which started with a classic pidgin for communication in trade, then evolving into a communication system capable of expressing a rich variety of ideas and feelings, which could generate a linguistic richness of expression, such as the “mornas”.
Creole is technically known as a neo-Latin language. It can be traced back directly to Portuguese, and there has been interest recently in studies to detect the presence of residues from archaic Portuguese.
The fervent desire to establish Creole as the official language gave rise to a “no man’s land” phenomenon in education, meaning that a significant number of pupils were in a critical situation of, on one hand, not learning Portuguese, which had not yet ceased to be the official language in Cape Verde, and, on the other hand, not being able to express themselves in Creole. This was a situation that deserved immediate attention, as there was a risk of leaving a generation excluded from access to culture. It was necessary to apply the standard in the Cape Verde Constitution, by creating conditions for Creole to also become an official language of the country, on a level with Portuguese.
