(Jewish Group) Jews have their own creole language -- in the middle of the Caribbean

As most Forward readers probably know, Yiddish and Hebrew are by far not the only Jewish languages. Jewish communities around the world once spoke or still speak their own versions of the local languages, such as Ladino, which is derived from Spanish, and Bukhari, which comes from Tajik.

One of the most unique, albeit little-known, Jewish diaspora languages is still spoken in Curaçao, an island in the Caribbean by the coast of Venezuela and a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

Curaçao’s main language is Papiamento. It’s a creole, a mix of two or more languages. But having many loanwords is not enough for a language to be a true creole. Most such languages also have very peculiar grammatical structures, similar to other creoles around the world, but unusual compared to all other languages.

When it comes to the more well-known creole languages such as Tok Pisin of Papua New Guinea, we have a good understanding of how exactly they emerged: the indigenous population learned some basic English words used by the British colonizers in trade and administration and began using them in a way they were used to, following the grammatical rules of the local Austronesian languages.

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