8

Papiamento is the most-widely spoken language on the islands of Curaçao, Aruba and Bonaire, which lie near Venezuela in the Caribbean Sea. There are several theories about how this language was formed but the truth is it has a strong Portuguese and Spanish presence.

  • Are Papiamento and Portuguese mutually intelligible?
    By mutually intelligible I mean that speakers of either language can readily understand each other without great effort or any previous study.

I'm also interested in learning whether there is any asymetric intelligibility.

Improve this question
6
  • Why don't you add an excerpt in Papiamento and aks somebody to add a translation in Portuguese, maybe in English as well, and you can see how similar are the Portuguese text generated from a Portuguese reader, reading your excerpt. That would answer your question well enough.
    – Eduardo Fernandes
    Commented Sep 7, 2016 at 15:49
  • @EduardoFernandes I believe we have users here who can do much better than that. Also, IMHO I think a good answer here will probably enrich our data bank.
    – Centaurus
    Commented Sep 7, 2016 at 15:59
  • Well this is a bit of an uninformed guess, I've never read nor heard Papiamento, but from a quick read of the Wikipedia I'd guess they are not very mutually intelligible, at least not with some degree of effort. Judging from say Creole which probably share a similar etymology, there may be some similarities between certain words, but even those some times differ enough in pronunciation, that makes it hard to understand immediately in regular speach. With some effort and interpretation one could probably piece together enough information to extrapolate a whole sentence.
    – Duarte Farrajota Ramos
    Commented Sep 8, 2016 at 0:30
  • Not at all, no.
    – Lambie
    Commented Apr 17, 2021 at 23:05
  • @Lambie Take a look at these sentences in Papiamento. The written language is sometimes easy to understand. In ordinary conversation it may be hard to understand anything, though.
    – Centaurus
    Commented Apr 17, 2021 at 23:20

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
4

A bit more informed answer, from a few sample texts found around the internet the language seems to my layman eyes an awful lot similar to Creole spoken by the people of Cape Verde.

It almost seems like a phonetics based language, where most words are written as they are pronounced, as if one was spelling them phonetically, with a certain degree of distortion or 'accent'. There also seem to be a considerable degree of Spanish influence added to the mix.

There are lots of similarities, some words are close enough to be understood, but my guess is that if a native Portuguese speaker were to listen to someone speaking fluent Papiamento, it would probably be hard to keep up and completely understand a full sentence.

Judging from say Creole, which probably share a similar etymology, there are some similarities between certain words, but they some times differ enough in pronunciation, to make it dificult to understand immediately in regular speech.

With some repetition or time to process one might piece together enough information to understand general concepts or meaning of a sentence. Same goes for written text.

So I would say no, they are not mutually intelligible. This of course is a bit of a subjective matter, and people with a more 'flexible hearing' or more used to foreign languages may find it easier to interpret Papiamento.

Improve this answer
2
  • "Same goes for written text" humm, really? From the words I've seen as examples, I'm inclined to believe it would be much easier to understand the written than the spoken language.
    – Centaurus
    Commented Sep 11, 2016 at 1:20
  • You are right, I meant written is easier than spoken, language, but probably still far from "interchangeable"
    – Duarte Farrajota Ramos
    Commented Sep 12, 2016 at 5:30
4

I am a Papiamentu speaker and I do read text in Portuguese. I do understand the just of what I read. That doesn't mean that I understand every word, but that is not necessary because you understand the majority of the text which helps interpret the words you do not.

Understanding speaking portuguese is also not that difficult, and vis versa also, as long as people speak normal( not to fast). Mind you I have never learned Portuguese. If you look on YouTube a Brazilian VJ from MTV shows the similarities of Portuguese with Papiamentu: Google search

Improve this answer
3

No. A native Portuguese speaker will probably be able to understand a text in Papiamento, especially if he or she is also fluent in English (I can), but spoken Papiamento would be incomprehensible.

The converse, I suspect, is also true, though it is more difficult for me to assess since I am not a Papiamento speaker.

Improve this answer
1
  • Right. And generally, it is spoken.
    – Lambie
    Commented Jul 21 at 14:53

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.