Language/Papiamento/Pronunciation/Alphabet-and-Pronunciation

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Papiamento (or Papiamentu) is a Creole language containing characteristics of Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, English and French. It is spoken in Curaçao, Bonaire, Aruba, the Netherlands and Sint Maarten. In this lesson, you will learn how to write and pronounce each letter of its alphabet.

After mastering this lesson, these related pages might interest you: Say Hello and Greetings in Papiamento.

Papiamento has 2 different writings:

  1. The writing used in Aruba is more similar to Spanish. It takes it's spelling for words from way they are spelled in their source language. Ex: cas = casa, meaning "house".
  2. In Bonaire and Curacao, it would be based on one letter for a sound, making spelling more phonologically based. Ex: kas = casa, meaning "house".

Dutch origin words would be written with the Dutch letters. Ex: wak = waken, meaning "to watch" and buki = boek, meaning "book".

Vowels[edit | edit source]

Letter IPA Equivalence in English
A a [ a ] as a in "apple"
E e [ e ] as e in "end"
I i [ i ] as ee in "teeth"
O o [ o ] as o in "ocean"
U u [ u ] as u in "clue"

Consonants[edit | edit source]

Letter IPA Equivalence in English
B b [ b ] as b in "bite"
C c [ k ] as c in "cat"
D d [ d ] as d in "dog"
F f [ f ] as f in "feet"
G g [ g ] as g in "gone"
H h [ h~x ] as h in "hill"
J j [ j ] as y in "yes"
K k [ k ] as k in "key"
L l [ l ] as l in "lap"
M m [ m ] as m in "moon"
N n [ n ] as n in "noon"
Ñ ñ [ ɲ ] as ny in "canyon"
P p [ p ] as p in "problem"
Q q [ k ] as q in "quip"
R r [ r ] as r in the Spanish word "rosa"
S s [ s ] as s in "sand"
T t [ t ] as t in "top"
V v [ v ] as v in "very"
W w [ w ] as w in "wall"
X x [ ks ]

[ kʃ ]

as x in "box"

as ct in "reflection"

Y y [ j ] as y in "yell"
Z z [ z ] as z in "zoo"

Double Letters[edit | edit source]

Letters IPA Equivalence in English
uu [ y ] as u in Portugese word "tudo"
ch [ tʃ ] as ch in "cheese"
dj [ dʒ ] as j in "jog"
sc [ s ] same as s
sh [ ʃ ] as sh in "sheep"
zj [ ʒ ] as si in "vision"

Tones[edit | edit source]

Papiamento is a tonal language which uses tones to differentiate between words, with a high and a low tone.

  1. When the stress on the words falls on the stem (main) syllable, there is no accent.
  2. Deviations from it are marked with an accent over vowels:
  • high tone (´)
  • low tone (`).
Vowels Samples
á altá, evitá
é étiko, platé
í asistí, tíket
ó holó, ferfdó
ú baúl, sunú
è agènda, balèt
ò blònt, fòndo
ù drùif, bùs

Videos[edit | edit source]

How to speak Papiamento - Alphabet - Alfabèt[edit | edit source]

Papiamentu Alphabet[edit | edit source]

Papiamentu ABC Learning Made Easy[edit | edit source]

Contributors

Vincent, Maintenance script and PabloWang


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