Indigenous & West African Influence

Caquetios of the Arawak Family

The words most likely derived from the indigenous Caquetios of the Arawak family are mostly names of the surrounding wildlife, plants, places, and animals. Lists of examples are presented below, taken from the article, The Aruba Language and Papiamento Jargon (1885) by Alb. S. Gatschet. The Caquetio language has much more influence on the island of Aruba because the natives had more time to influence Papiamento than on Curacao, where there is more influence from West African Languages, as explained by Dr. Bart Jacobs in the interview below.

However, there are some examples of West African influence. For Example, the plural form in Papiamento is -nan (as shown through the examples in the English section) which is said to have come from the creole of the West African coast as explained by Dr. Eva Eckkrammer below. Dr. Bart Jacobs mentions in his article Lexico-semantic traces of kinship between Papiamentu and Upper Guinea Portuguese Creoles that "West Atlantic and Mande words are scarce in Papiamentu, but the ones that we do find significantly have a direct parallel in Upper Guinea [...] While clearly much etymological research still needs to be done to get a better picture of the African contribution to the Papiamentu lexicon", he explores this relationship in this article (2014, p.142).

Section of Dr. Bart Jacobs interview about the influence of the Caquetios and West African languages.

Examples of Caquetios words

Aruban Mountains and heights: Aiyo, Behika, Cukiuroi, Handebirari, Kasinari, Matividiri, Shabururi, Tarabana, Wakubana, Yabarubari.

Aruban Caves: Matividiri, Warerukuri, Waririkiri.

Names of Plants: The names of plants are presented with their Latin classification.

kipopo - Agaricus

lokiloki - Mimosa unguiscata

makura- Abrus precatorius

nandu -Cytisus catjan

shimaruko -Malpighia glabra

surun- Cratera gynandra

takamahak -Ragara octandra

(Gatshet, A. S., 1885, p.301)

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