A treasure hunt for the early proofs of Papiamento/Papiamentu - Part Two
Colonial passers-by on Papiamento: 'important, though often hostile'.
When Father Michael Johannes Alexius Schabel S.J. In his 'report' of 1705 which is the first known so far about Papiamento he wrote, that the island Curacao was already multilingual. The language siaution was even complicated at the beginning of the 18th century. Father Victor de Dole preached in French. The Jews had their own language Judeo-Espanol and Judeo-Portuguese, the Protestant had their Dutch and Schabel almost still preached in Spanish with several times on request in Dutch.
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| Bohemia. |
The Bohemia-based father Schabel had learned DUtch when the stayed in the Low Countries (Modern-day Netherlands and Belgium) from 1699 to 1704, which offered him the oppertunity to also preach in Dutch, according to his diary at the request of many: "On New Years Day in the year 1708, I have read the first mass and for the first time preached in my home and church. I have preached for those who are fluently in Dutch. Diary January 1st 1708".
However, it will not have been that everyone was multilingual, Schabel, on the linguistic knowledge of his opponent, Father Victor de Dole, mockingly notes: "Also he knows no other language except French, Spanish he speaks moderately, but barbaric and very bad. In it he preaches as we say 'boom bam' Everyone gets out and understands what he wants and can, as many Catholics who know spanish or also do not know have told me. Report 58''. In a latter to his superiors, the priest Caysedo writes, who was also prefect on the island from 1715 to 1738, that he urgently needa a priest who can 'preach in French and Flemish' and who also "must know knowledge about the language of country, and other languages who are required for in this country (Brada: 1956: 34)'. What is once again striking is that Caysedo goes out of a multilinhualism, he asks alot of language skills.
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| Dutch Caribbean. |
In general, Dutch passers-by in colonial times have veen strongly negative about Papiamento. Their denigrating statements were and are often quoted as proof how Dutch people thought about Papiamento. Yet despite this, they are unexposed to those who are able to move aside. In their study on Caribbean 'Literature and Culture' Kevin Meehan and Paul B. Miller in 2003, p, 311-312 give five arguments why colonial literature, despite this heriditary depreciation that is often expressed against local culture, can still be important for the reseacher. They are 'important, though often hostile' because these colonial contributions contain information that can also be valuable today for the knowledge of indigenous cultures and those of the enslaved population groups.
These in themsleves are hostile contributions containing information on all aspects of colonial society, seen from the day viewpoint there is also in the hostile writings of superior waking ministers, military, agricultural and schoolmasters to find information on grammatical characteristics of Papiamento, about the sociolinguistic situtation on the islands and pyscholinguistic conception of multilingualism. At the time they were the first and only ones to put the destinctive features of Papiamento on paper.
We are now letting the negative value judgements from Eurocentric feelings of superiority for what they are - usually no more than an oudated classicist grammar concept that went out of the aboslute superiority of Latin and in that Latin strait-jacked also tried to wring the own language. This was difficult or not for Dutch, For Papiamento, according to these authors, not at all. A language that was grammatically so far away from Latin could therefore be nothing more than being inferior.
Let us concentrate on those aspects of these negative writings that describe linguistic characteristics that are observed in terms of language, such as aspects of vocabulary, inflection and conjugation and pronounciation. Those who leave the negative and derogatory statements for what they are worthy of, are acquainted with the first, albeit still very summary, grammatical descriptions of Papiamento.
The colonial feelings of superiority prevent the writers of romantropo-ligical works, with their descriptions in the narrative form of land and people, from taking note of the language and to analyse grammatical characteristics and to denote sociolinguistic, and psycholinguistic arguments which are also sometimes being used.
The Low German as well known as Arabic.'
Probabaly the most notorious for his negative statements about Papiamento was the fist country schoolmaster Gerrit Gijsbert van Paddenburg who did in 1819 in his Beschrijving van het eiland Curaçao en onderhorige eilanden published at the Heirs Francois Bohn in Haarlem: "This is unbearable for the fine ear of the European at his first arrival, and difficult one can get used to this turkey sound." However, his assertion that Papiamento has a Amerindian origin, he was completely wrong: "The previous inhabitans of this island that were Indians, who were touched under the Spanish dominiation, have made such a mixture or jargon that was born, which has been changed by the arrival of the Dutch. (..).'' (p. 71).
Low German - Dutch
But with his linguistic sociological observation that ir was 'Nederduitsch - the then designation of the Dutch 'as known as Arabic', he probably gave reliable information about the language distribution of his days. He noted in 1819 as the first country teacher, who had the task of bringing education 'on an improved Dutch foot', that Papiamento was widely spoken in all layers of society: "Not only the Negroes, Mulattos, and colored people speak this jargon, but also the whites, especially the White Creoles, whose children, being suckled by Black women, by recieving the firs timpressions, that they speak no other language than Creole or Papiamento, and later the language Dutch and Low German are being learned deficient and insufficient, especially among the female sex, is so ingrained, that there is no seems to be no improving at all". (p. 72).
Furthermore he noted the multilingual character of the society: "English, French, Spanish, and High German are being spoken by merchants and the civilized class, especially also Neger - or Colonial French and basterdized Danish". In this way, he provides one of the first important linguistic sociological information and is 'important, though oten hostile' for our limited knowledge of language situation of the early 19th century.
Grammatical characteristics.
G.G. van Paddenburg can't call Papiamento a language and characterizes it consistently as a 'jargon' but he has known the language in spite of his negative attitude albeit perhaps to limited remarks about a number of grammatical aspects, such as vocabulary, inflection, conjugation and gender. He characterizes Papiamento, from earlier mentioned classicist grammatical contemplation which so willingly saw conjugation, inflection and name traps, as an arm in words, except for numerous bad words, as a language 'without bending, insertion, or gender distinction'.
Paddenburg notes that in education the pupils repeatedly confuse the masculine, feminine, and insided nouns, and the three verb times past, present and future and have difficulty in ruling the words. In this way he has a number of important differences between Dutch and Papiamento, which untill today play in education. In his words, his pupil 'always confuse the sexes, the coming, present, and members by a hastyy, and so often become unintelligible. His pupils also struggled with the pronounciation of Dutch. He characterizes Papiamento to as language with 'rich in violently pronounced sharp sounds', a characterization which, incidentally, is given to the Dutch language, and in which he tries to blame the mother tongue of the pupils as a 'problem' due to them learning a foreign language: "it still comes that the Spanish G or GK, sharply pronounced, to a ST resembles, and the H usually stupid, equal in French, with the G is exchanged, so that yellow and whole , wood and gold, good and hat etc. is also pronounced and sometime can give cause for confusion"(p, 71-73)
With this remarks about the difficulties that his pupils have on grammatical levels in teaching the foreign language Dutch from a totally difeerent native situation, he is the first to respond to the aforementioned interference phenomena.
Paddenburg can be dismissed as an enemy of Papiamento - which he undoubtedly was - but he was the first to pay attention to the language by examening and discribing it from his negative vision. With this he set the tone for a lot of his profession his followers who in the years from an indentical depreciate the same or investigated or perhaps have been rewritten.
By both the diversity of the islandary population and its geographic position with its busy international shipping and trade the islands were also in the eigheenth century already multi-lingual. Europeans came from all the countries of that part of the world, witnessing the old family names of the island, which indicate French, German, Scottish, Spanish and many other origins.
During the English intermediate reign (1803 - 1804 and 1807 - 1816) the English language was strongly promoted, the first local theatre group played in the early twenties of the 19th century in French undet the motto: On fait ce qu'on peut, mais non ce qu'on veut. Quite described as 'We do what is possible though it is less what we would like'.Around the South American War of Independence of Simon Bolivar at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Leeward islands had a few thousand Spanish-speaking political refuguees, who incidentally, did not have a traceable influence on the literature.
Multilingualism was the norm. But despite - or more likely thanks to - this multilingualism got Papiamento as contact language and unit language for all the population groups increasingly a close position on the islands. Papiamento became the language that all the inhabitans connected with. Over 19th century, the language connoisseur Florimon of Putte in his history of the Papiamento gives in his book 'Dede Pikinia i su bisinia' (1999 : 251 - 273) five arguments in favour of the spread of Papiamento by all the layers of the population. Sucessively he mentions the influence of yaya's (black maidens) who raised the children, the isolated existense of the white woman who therefore spoke flawed Dutch, the commercial spirit, the mission and more generally the important social role that Papiamento plays, whereby the younger generation made itself the language easily own.
Reverend G.B. Bosch: The first grammaticus of Papiamento?
Reverend G.B. Bosch is in his Reizen in West-Indië (1829: 212 - 219) the one who has written most extensively about the islands, not only about Curaçao, but the other two islands Aruba and Bonaire aswell, he was also a fierce opponent of Papiamento and proponent of the Dutch language, as well as Van Paddenburg (Who we talked about above), in which he calls out the Dutch colonial government in the colony - unlike the English colonial - too little or did not pay any attention to the language of the motherland: "The English have greatly promoted their language here in those few years that they been master of this island" Papiamento is known by him most as a 'jargon', but sometimes quietly mentioned as a language - 'if the the name can be worn'.
Sociolinguistic data.
More detailed than Paddenburg is Reverend G.B. Bosch on the language distribution in the first half of the 19th century: "In Curaçao, Aruba, and Bonaire is a Spanish patois, called Papiamento, which the Negroes and Coloreds, the children of the white inhabitans, and a large proportion of the female sex prefer to speak amongst themselves. " He also mentions specifically the children and the women as users of Papiamento. In 'the gardens' "the hamlets of the Free Negroes'; "only the Spanish jargon is preserved in all the same maleffectiveness and poverty". (p, 215).
He is annoyed by the lack of any colonial language policy that neglects the Dutch language: "It is not a thing of the other European possesions in Americas, that of England, France, and Spain, both whites and coloreds, and blacks speak the language of the Motherland, because our otherwise so glorious ancestors have so little interest in their language" (p, 212). Bosch calls the trading spirit 'of profit and benefit' as a cause. But yes, even in The Netherlands, Dutch is 'like a corrupted side-branch of the High German' and under the influence of French neglected. (p , 214-215). Reverend Bosch asks more appreciation for Dutch and shows outright his depreciate for the language of the colony, altough he thinks that "its 'worthy' to know something of the language of this island, which is spoken on one of our fatherland colonies'.
The Reverend not only writes about the dysfunctioning of Dutch, but also that Papiamento 'can be soon learned by children, even if parents do not propagate, it happens by listening to the house attendants, 'while they have great difficulty in Low German, making little progress'. (p, 217). The Protestant reverend Bosch points to the great role of the mission that uses Papiamento, and not Dutch. he undertands the language pragmatism of the mission and that the priests uses Papiamento greatly, 'to be useful for the congragation'. There is also catchism printed and there are plans for a prayer book. Although this is useful for extension of faith, Dutch is thus lost, according to the reverend, with which he views the missionary gain as a major cause of the demise of Dutch. Where so soften is spoen about the Dutch that threatens Papiamento, here Papiamento threathens Dutch.
Grammatical peculiarities.
The preacher not only complains, but goes much further and is much more detailed in his description of the language than schoolmaster van Paddenburg. In four pages he has a number of grammatical peculiarities, where van Paddenburg mainly had the lack thereof, he points to the simple grammar of Papiamento because it doesnt have many rules at all.
Reverend Bosch then gives a mini-grammar of the language, indicating pronounciation, vocabulary and various word types. Despite his negative and pejorative expression, he has a number of data on the language structure. He calls the language poor in words and borrowing 'partially very twisted Spanish, perhaps old Indian words, and Low German words': "The decent Papiamento is being charged with Low-German, which often gives dust to laughter, if one heards under a singling gehic, haec, hoc, and many Dutch words, also called whole sentences, in a strange way of saying" (p, 216).
He also points to the tone language character, so that a verb can also be used as an verb and ajective word type. 'It is all that is made up of the meaning of changing meaning through the change of emphasis' he wrties, he call this the 'only difficulty in this jargon'.
To demonstrate how detailed Bosch is going to be in his description, here are a few examples. Of the word types he mentions the article, the noun, the verb, and the personal pronounces. Papiamento makes no distincion for articles and does not know any genera of the noun: "to cause the trouble with the latter in our language, one is thus freed" Multiples are made with 'nan', inflection takes place 'by di or na': The first is what comes to us the 2nd, and the last as 3rd.
In the conjugtion, the verb remains non-changed: 'ta' denotes the present tense, 'a den' perfect, and 'tawa ta den' more than perfect tind: 'Lo den' is future time, in the personal pronounce he destinguishes the first person 'mi', the second 'bo', and the third 'el' and in the plurar 'nos, bosonan, and nan'.
Psycholinguistic beliefs
Probabaly the most notorious for his negative statements about Papiamento was the fist country schoolmaster Gerrit Gijsbert van Paddenburg who did in 1819 in his Beschrijving van het eiland Curaçao en onderhorige eilanden published at the Heirs Francois Bohn in Haarlem: "This is unbearable for the fine ear of the European at his first arrival, and difficult one can get used to this turkey sound." However, his assertion that Papiamento has a Amerindian origin, he was completely wrong: "The previous inhabitans of this island that were Indians, who were touched under the Spanish dominiation, have made such a mixture or jargon that was born, which has been changed by the arrival of the Dutch. (..).'' (p. 71).
Low German - Dutch
But with his linguistic sociological observation that ir was 'Nederduitsch - the then designation of the Dutch 'as known as Arabic', he probably gave reliable information about the language distribution of his days. He noted in 1819 as the first country teacher, who had the task of bringing education 'on an improved Dutch foot', that Papiamento was widely spoken in all layers of society: "Not only the Negroes, Mulattos, and colored people speak this jargon, but also the whites, especially the White Creoles, whose children, being suckled by Black women, by recieving the firs timpressions, that they speak no other language than Creole or Papiamento, and later the language Dutch and Low German are being learned deficient and insufficient, especially among the female sex, is so ingrained, that there is no seems to be no improving at all". (p. 72).
Furthermore he noted the multilingual character of the society: "English, French, Spanish, and High German are being spoken by merchants and the civilized class, especially also Neger - or Colonial French and basterdized Danish". In this way, he provides one of the first important linguistic sociological information and is 'important, though oten hostile' for our limited knowledge of language situation of the early 19th century.
Grammatical characteristics.
G.G. van Paddenburg can't call Papiamento a language and characterizes it consistently as a 'jargon' but he has known the language in spite of his negative attitude albeit perhaps to limited remarks about a number of grammatical aspects, such as vocabulary, inflection, conjugation and gender. He characterizes Papiamento, from earlier mentioned classicist grammatical contemplation which so willingly saw conjugation, inflection and name traps, as an arm in words, except for numerous bad words, as a language 'without bending, insertion, or gender distinction'.
Paddenburg notes that in education the pupils repeatedly confuse the masculine, feminine, and insided nouns, and the three verb times past, present and future and have difficulty in ruling the words. In this way he has a number of important differences between Dutch and Papiamento, which untill today play in education. In his words, his pupil 'always confuse the sexes, the coming, present, and members by a hastyy, and so often become unintelligible. His pupils also struggled with the pronounciation of Dutch. He characterizes Papiamento to as language with 'rich in violently pronounced sharp sounds', a characterization which, incidentally, is given to the Dutch language, and in which he tries to blame the mother tongue of the pupils as a 'problem' due to them learning a foreign language: "it still comes that the Spanish G or GK, sharply pronounced, to a ST resembles, and the H usually stupid, equal in French, with the G is exchanged, so that yellow and whole , wood and gold, good and hat etc. is also pronounced and sometime can give cause for confusion"(p, 71-73)
With this remarks about the difficulties that his pupils have on grammatical levels in teaching the foreign language Dutch from a totally difeerent native situation, he is the first to respond to the aforementioned interference phenomena.
Paddenburg can be dismissed as an enemy of Papiamento - which he undoubtedly was - but he was the first to pay attention to the language by examening and discribing it from his negative vision. With this he set the tone for a lot of his profession his followers who in the years from an indentical depreciate the same or investigated or perhaps have been rewritten.
By both the diversity of the islandary population and its geographic position with its busy international shipping and trade the islands were also in the eigheenth century already multi-lingual. Europeans came from all the countries of that part of the world, witnessing the old family names of the island, which indicate French, German, Scottish, Spanish and many other origins.
During the English intermediate reign (1803 - 1804 and 1807 - 1816) the English language was strongly promoted, the first local theatre group played in the early twenties of the 19th century in French undet the motto: On fait ce qu'on peut, mais non ce qu'on veut. Quite described as 'We do what is possible though it is less what we would like'.Around the South American War of Independence of Simon Bolivar at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Leeward islands had a few thousand Spanish-speaking political refuguees, who incidentally, did not have a traceable influence on the literature.
Multilingualism was the norm. But despite - or more likely thanks to - this multilingualism got Papiamento as contact language and unit language for all the population groups increasingly a close position on the islands. Papiamento became the language that all the inhabitans connected with. Over 19th century, the language connoisseur Florimon of Putte in his history of the Papiamento gives in his book 'Dede Pikinia i su bisinia' (1999 : 251 - 273) five arguments in favour of the spread of Papiamento by all the layers of the population. Sucessively he mentions the influence of yaya's (black maidens) who raised the children, the isolated existense of the white woman who therefore spoke flawed Dutch, the commercial spirit, the mission and more generally the important social role that Papiamento plays, whereby the younger generation made itself the language easily own.
Reverend G.B. Bosch: The first grammaticus of Papiamento?
Reverend G.B. Bosch is in his Reizen in West-Indië (1829: 212 - 219) the one who has written most extensively about the islands, not only about Curaçao, but the other two islands Aruba and Bonaire aswell, he was also a fierce opponent of Papiamento and proponent of the Dutch language, as well as Van Paddenburg (Who we talked about above), in which he calls out the Dutch colonial government in the colony - unlike the English colonial - too little or did not pay any attention to the language of the motherland: "The English have greatly promoted their language here in those few years that they been master of this island" Papiamento is known by him most as a 'jargon', but sometimes quietly mentioned as a language - 'if the the name can be worn'.
Sociolinguistic data.
More detailed than Paddenburg is Reverend G.B. Bosch on the language distribution in the first half of the 19th century: "In Curaçao, Aruba, and Bonaire is a Spanish patois, called Papiamento, which the Negroes and Coloreds, the children of the white inhabitans, and a large proportion of the female sex prefer to speak amongst themselves. " He also mentions specifically the children and the women as users of Papiamento. In 'the gardens' "the hamlets of the Free Negroes'; "only the Spanish jargon is preserved in all the same maleffectiveness and poverty". (p, 215).
He is annoyed by the lack of any colonial language policy that neglects the Dutch language: "It is not a thing of the other European possesions in Americas, that of England, France, and Spain, both whites and coloreds, and blacks speak the language of the Motherland, because our otherwise so glorious ancestors have so little interest in their language" (p, 212). Bosch calls the trading spirit 'of profit and benefit' as a cause. But yes, even in The Netherlands, Dutch is 'like a corrupted side-branch of the High German' and under the influence of French neglected. (p , 214-215). Reverend Bosch asks more appreciation for Dutch and shows outright his depreciate for the language of the colony, altough he thinks that "its 'worthy' to know something of the language of this island, which is spoken on one of our fatherland colonies'.
The Reverend not only writes about the dysfunctioning of Dutch, but also that Papiamento 'can be soon learned by children, even if parents do not propagate, it happens by listening to the house attendants, 'while they have great difficulty in Low German, making little progress'. (p, 217). The Protestant reverend Bosch points to the great role of the mission that uses Papiamento, and not Dutch. he undertands the language pragmatism of the mission and that the priests uses Papiamento greatly, 'to be useful for the congragation'. There is also catchism printed and there are plans for a prayer book. Although this is useful for extension of faith, Dutch is thus lost, according to the reverend, with which he views the missionary gain as a major cause of the demise of Dutch. Where so soften is spoen about the Dutch that threatens Papiamento, here Papiamento threathens Dutch.
Grammatical peculiarities.
The preacher not only complains, but goes much further and is much more detailed in his description of the language than schoolmaster van Paddenburg. In four pages he has a number of grammatical peculiarities, where van Paddenburg mainly had the lack thereof, he points to the simple grammar of Papiamento because it doesnt have many rules at all.
Reverend Bosch then gives a mini-grammar of the language, indicating pronounciation, vocabulary and various word types. Despite his negative and pejorative expression, he has a number of data on the language structure. He calls the language poor in words and borrowing 'partially very twisted Spanish, perhaps old Indian words, and Low German words': "The decent Papiamento is being charged with Low-German, which often gives dust to laughter, if one heards under a singling gehic, haec, hoc, and many Dutch words, also called whole sentences, in a strange way of saying" (p, 216).
He also points to the tone language character, so that a verb can also be used as an verb and ajective word type. 'It is all that is made up of the meaning of changing meaning through the change of emphasis' he wrties, he call this the 'only difficulty in this jargon'.
To demonstrate how detailed Bosch is going to be in his description, here are a few examples. Of the word types he mentions the article, the noun, the verb, and the personal pronounces. Papiamento makes no distincion for articles and does not know any genera of the noun: "to cause the trouble with the latter in our language, one is thus freed" Multiples are made with 'nan', inflection takes place 'by di or na': The first is what comes to us the 2nd, and the last as 3rd.
In the conjugtion, the verb remains non-changed: 'ta' denotes the present tense, 'a den' perfect, and 'tawa ta den' more than perfect tind: 'Lo den' is future time, in the personal pronounce he destinguishes the first person 'mi', the second 'bo', and the third 'el' and in the plurar 'nos, bosonan, and nan'.
Psycholinguistic beliefs
The beginning of the 19th century knows all the persistent belief that multilingualism is unfavourable because one language would inevitably be in the way of the other. Reverend Bosch takes the view that the learning of Papiamento is detrimental to the knowledge of Dutch and other languages, using the examples "Times, sexes, and numbers are being confused with eachther" Even by the most civilized and literate he hears traces of a negative influence of Papiamento "On our language and pronounciation".
After a quiet and attentive analysis of lamguage characteristiscs, the venijn des dominees sit sin the tail of his language consideration. "Such a highly shabby language will also be shameful for the intellect of the children because they have no words to express themselves decently, and their views are more than confined within narrow boundaries". (P, 217)
Reverend Bosch was therefore well aware of Papiamento core brands, probably knew the language, but did not used it and, despite the knowledge of the language, remained a strong opponent of it. Here too, as with the schoolteacher G.G van Paddenburg a dozen years earlier, where the adage of 'important, though often hostile': from a hostile attitude towards the language, a first beginning of grammatical informatoon is nevertheless given on that language.
H.J. Abbring - A counter-vote.
The romantic military H.J. Abbring was with his 'Weemoedstonen uit de geschiedenis van mijn leven of Mijne reis naar Curaçao en vlugtige beschouwingen van dat eiland gedurende mijn tienjarig verblijf op hetzelfve (1834)' on the negative choir of lamentations an exception, for he did not speak himself, as so many others, out for or against Papiamento in his personal writings. He gives in his writings admittedly hardly or no particulations of the language but is nevertheless interesting because of a brief description of the population composition and an earlier mention of oral song art.
Abbring describes the population of the island at the beginning of the 19th century as consisting of descendants of Spanish and Dutch family's - the creoles - and descendants of Portuguese Jews. In addition, there are the mulattos or 'people of color' and furter newcomers such as Dutchmen, Spaniards, Portuguese, Americans, Frenchmen, Englishmen, and some Germans who, of course, each brought their own language in the initial situation (p 91-92). It would have been a babbling speech confusion if Papiamento had not functioned as a connected language. Abbring worked as a land-meter over the entire island for years and thus came into contact with everyone, including the districts.
Word art in Papiamento.
Completly new is its short reference, unfortunately without further details. about a manifest early form of oral word art. He mentions of the slaves 'their singing, dance and poetry' that must have been in Papiamento, but he does not make a special remark about. It turns out to be a given for granted to him (p, 82), with his casual remark, he probably proves - although not specifically - that there is an oral song treasure in Papiamento. As Abbring, a serious romantic European who continually longs for his homeland, makes a stroll and sees a Negro slave with a heavy twig forest om his head, "while he sang his song" (p, 50). Here we seen an early testimony of the existense of an oral word art among the enslaved population. What would we like to know text and melody of 'his song'!.
On the multilingual islands little by little was also a multilingual literature. Numerous English poems were published in The Curacao Gazette (1812-1816). The earliest local stage tradition of the Jewish population, which dates from the same early 19th cetury, was in French. Remarkably, the young Aruban woman Mosa Lampe wrote and read Low German verses in Aruba, says Reverend G.B. Bosch in 1929 (p, 222) Historian Johan Hartog does not write in the chapter 'Church and Culture in the last century' of his history about Curacao on page 303 about the absense of any reading culture. He reports the folk culture with her dances and harvest festivals, but unfortunately does not write anything about any culture in general of the slaves, let alone examples of oral word art. Spanish played in the written literature of those days, as at least evidenced by preserved documents, still no role in meaning.
An eminently polyglotic colony.
Later chroniqus such as M.D. Teenstra (1836), Reverend S. van Dissel (1856), Reverend G.J Simons (1868) and schoolteacher A.T. Brusse (1882) invariably point to the multilingualism of the islands. Teenstra points out that 'especially the white population of Curacao consists of all kinds nations and tongues' (p, 164). In the Babylonian speech confusion is Papiamento - necessarily? - The beacon of contact.
These later authors are less 'important' but nevertheless certainly so 'hostile' versus Papiamento. They persist in the negative and even write their predecessors even after, as Reverend G.J. Simons in his material about the 'eminently polyglotic colony' according to the subtitle of his 'Beschrijving van het eiland Curacao' gathered from various sources.
After M.D Teenstra wrote down his dislike of Papiamento in 1836, he writes himself against by completely displaying as the biblical 'Ten Commandments' and as the 'Our Father'. as -when he was still a pastor - M.J. Niewindt has communicated to him those texts, which he explicitly value of the language demonstrates.
That is because he finds two registers of Papiamento, whereby the 'church language' according to him is ''purged and more to Spanish, than one hears in the walk and on the streets''. He thinks that Dutch is becoming better controlled, not only amongst the 'decent class', but ''Even Negroes understand and speak Dutch better than those of Suriname''. (p, 181). Through his travels as a colonial agricultural scientist, he is able to compare the linguistic characteristics of the islands with South Africa. (p, 182).
United Protestant Municipilaty.
Also the preacher of the United Protestant Muncipilaty on Curacao, Reverend S. van Dissel, mentions in 1857 the multilingualism with not only Dutch, but also Spanish, French, Portuguese and English are frequently used languages. He knows nothing but negativity when it comes to Papiamento, after which he knows with the meanwhile usual grammatical arguments of the absense of conjugation or inflection, distinction of sex, number, name fall arrives: "I do want to believe that there are such poor and flawed languages as Papiamento,but poorer and defective are not there". (p, 215).
But then he contradicts himself, as his predecessors did, by showing a few pages in detail how both this conjugation, inflection, number and name fall are realized in Papiamento. He is thus able to know up to details of the grammatical characteristics of the language and describes them exensively, with which he also proves in spite that Papiamento certainly knew fixed rules.
Moreover, it is striking how the grammar in the 19th century was already established. Interestingly, van Dissel also observes that, as a pastor "On the catechisation, he often has to use Papiamento to make himself understood, or to clarify a Dutch sentence from the Bible, just as Latin." Here it appears that the seperation between the Protestants - Catholics and Dutch - Papiamento was less acute than generally assumed. Also the Protestant had to allow Papiamento - albeit against their will and wishes. The Reverend mentions finally, a number of religious expenditure of the mission for worship and education and then decides his contribution also with the 'Óur Father' and ''Twelve Articles of Faith' in Papiamento. Thus, the pastor teaches that in the Protestant Church Papiamento was necessary to have and keep contact with the faithful congregation - albeit with gnawing teeth - against that 'barbaric language'
As the century passes, there is a greater understanding of the social value of Spanish than for Dutch, because the practical usefulness of Dutch for daily life and the sandwhich proves to be of little value. School teacher A.T. Brusse afovates in 1882 for multilingual education and thinks it 'unfortunate' that in the 'government schools' only Dutch is taught., who for the struggle of existence 'is of little or no use' if they later want to be 'sailors, merchants clerks, or crafttsmen, or in the surrounding republics to find an existence.
The Dutch Socialist Chamber member H. van Kol criticized on his journey through the colony in 1904 against the then embraced 'ethical policy' which demanded Dutch language and culture in the colony, in which the indifference of the colonial government ended, the Eurocentric education and the Dutch as an instruction language, because '"It is a foolish and unreachable thing, outside of Willemstad, to impose the Dutch language on the children, which will nevertheless be in an unintelligible patois, as well as that with the Negro-English and the French of Martinique was the case" (p, 227). He takes that postion on didactic grounds, because 'the schoolteacher' will push the 'folk teacher', and the result will be the stupidity and ignorance persists.
After a quiet and attentive analysis of lamguage characteristiscs, the venijn des dominees sit sin the tail of his language consideration. "Such a highly shabby language will also be shameful for the intellect of the children because they have no words to express themselves decently, and their views are more than confined within narrow boundaries". (P, 217)
Reverend Bosch was therefore well aware of Papiamento core brands, probably knew the language, but did not used it and, despite the knowledge of the language, remained a strong opponent of it. Here too, as with the schoolteacher G.G van Paddenburg a dozen years earlier, where the adage of 'important, though often hostile': from a hostile attitude towards the language, a first beginning of grammatical informatoon is nevertheless given on that language.
H.J. Abbring - A counter-vote.
The romantic military H.J. Abbring was with his 'Weemoedstonen uit de geschiedenis van mijn leven of Mijne reis naar Curaçao en vlugtige beschouwingen van dat eiland gedurende mijn tienjarig verblijf op hetzelfve (1834)' on the negative choir of lamentations an exception, for he did not speak himself, as so many others, out for or against Papiamento in his personal writings. He gives in his writings admittedly hardly or no particulations of the language but is nevertheless interesting because of a brief description of the population composition and an earlier mention of oral song art.
Abbring describes the population of the island at the beginning of the 19th century as consisting of descendants of Spanish and Dutch family's - the creoles - and descendants of Portuguese Jews. In addition, there are the mulattos or 'people of color' and furter newcomers such as Dutchmen, Spaniards, Portuguese, Americans, Frenchmen, Englishmen, and some Germans who, of course, each brought their own language in the initial situation (p 91-92). It would have been a babbling speech confusion if Papiamento had not functioned as a connected language. Abbring worked as a land-meter over the entire island for years and thus came into contact with everyone, including the districts.
Word art in Papiamento.
Completly new is its short reference, unfortunately without further details. about a manifest early form of oral word art. He mentions of the slaves 'their singing, dance and poetry' that must have been in Papiamento, but he does not make a special remark about. It turns out to be a given for granted to him (p, 82), with his casual remark, he probably proves - although not specifically - that there is an oral song treasure in Papiamento. As Abbring, a serious romantic European who continually longs for his homeland, makes a stroll and sees a Negro slave with a heavy twig forest om his head, "while he sang his song" (p, 50). Here we seen an early testimony of the existense of an oral word art among the enslaved population. What would we like to know text and melody of 'his song'!.
On the multilingual islands little by little was also a multilingual literature. Numerous English poems were published in The Curacao Gazette (1812-1816). The earliest local stage tradition of the Jewish population, which dates from the same early 19th cetury, was in French. Remarkably, the young Aruban woman Mosa Lampe wrote and read Low German verses in Aruba, says Reverend G.B. Bosch in 1929 (p, 222) Historian Johan Hartog does not write in the chapter 'Church and Culture in the last century' of his history about Curacao on page 303 about the absense of any reading culture. He reports the folk culture with her dances and harvest festivals, but unfortunately does not write anything about any culture in general of the slaves, let alone examples of oral word art. Spanish played in the written literature of those days, as at least evidenced by preserved documents, still no role in meaning.
An eminently polyglotic colony.
Later chroniqus such as M.D. Teenstra (1836), Reverend S. van Dissel (1856), Reverend G.J Simons (1868) and schoolteacher A.T. Brusse (1882) invariably point to the multilingualism of the islands. Teenstra points out that 'especially the white population of Curacao consists of all kinds nations and tongues' (p, 164). In the Babylonian speech confusion is Papiamento - necessarily? - The beacon of contact.
These later authors are less 'important' but nevertheless certainly so 'hostile' versus Papiamento. They persist in the negative and even write their predecessors even after, as Reverend G.J. Simons in his material about the 'eminently polyglotic colony' according to the subtitle of his 'Beschrijving van het eiland Curacao' gathered from various sources.
After M.D Teenstra wrote down his dislike of Papiamento in 1836, he writes himself against by completely displaying as the biblical 'Ten Commandments' and as the 'Our Father'. as -when he was still a pastor - M.J. Niewindt has communicated to him those texts, which he explicitly value of the language demonstrates.
That is because he finds two registers of Papiamento, whereby the 'church language' according to him is ''purged and more to Spanish, than one hears in the walk and on the streets''. He thinks that Dutch is becoming better controlled, not only amongst the 'decent class', but ''Even Negroes understand and speak Dutch better than those of Suriname''. (p, 181). Through his travels as a colonial agricultural scientist, he is able to compare the linguistic characteristics of the islands with South Africa. (p, 182).
United Protestant Municipilaty.
Also the preacher of the United Protestant Muncipilaty on Curacao, Reverend S. van Dissel, mentions in 1857 the multilingualism with not only Dutch, but also Spanish, French, Portuguese and English are frequently used languages. He knows nothing but negativity when it comes to Papiamento, after which he knows with the meanwhile usual grammatical arguments of the absense of conjugation or inflection, distinction of sex, number, name fall arrives: "I do want to believe that there are such poor and flawed languages as Papiamento,but poorer and defective are not there". (p, 215).
But then he contradicts himself, as his predecessors did, by showing a few pages in detail how both this conjugation, inflection, number and name fall are realized in Papiamento. He is thus able to know up to details of the grammatical characteristics of the language and describes them exensively, with which he also proves in spite that Papiamento certainly knew fixed rules.
Moreover, it is striking how the grammar in the 19th century was already established. Interestingly, van Dissel also observes that, as a pastor "On the catechisation, he often has to use Papiamento to make himself understood, or to clarify a Dutch sentence from the Bible, just as Latin." Here it appears that the seperation between the Protestants - Catholics and Dutch - Papiamento was less acute than generally assumed. Also the Protestant had to allow Papiamento - albeit against their will and wishes. The Reverend mentions finally, a number of religious expenditure of the mission for worship and education and then decides his contribution also with the 'Óur Father' and ''Twelve Articles of Faith' in Papiamento. Thus, the pastor teaches that in the Protestant Church Papiamento was necessary to have and keep contact with the faithful congregation - albeit with gnawing teeth - against that 'barbaric language'
As the century passes, there is a greater understanding of the social value of Spanish than for Dutch, because the practical usefulness of Dutch for daily life and the sandwhich proves to be of little value. School teacher A.T. Brusse afovates in 1882 for multilingual education and thinks it 'unfortunate' that in the 'government schools' only Dutch is taught., who for the struggle of existence 'is of little or no use' if they later want to be 'sailors, merchants clerks, or crafttsmen, or in the surrounding republics to find an existence.
The Dutch Socialist Chamber member H. van Kol criticized on his journey through the colony in 1904 against the then embraced 'ethical policy' which demanded Dutch language and culture in the colony, in which the indifference of the colonial government ended, the Eurocentric education and the Dutch as an instruction language, because '"It is a foolish and unreachable thing, outside of Willemstad, to impose the Dutch language on the children, which will nevertheless be in an unintelligible patois, as well as that with the Negro-English and the French of Martinique was the case" (p, 227). He takes that postion on didactic grounds, because 'the schoolteacher' will push the 'folk teacher', and the result will be the stupidity and ignorance persists.
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