Language/Papiamento/Pronunciation/Alphabet-and-Pronunciation

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

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

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

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

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