The language has quite a simple structure with all regular verbs, and no recognition of case and gender while it can be expressed by simply “stating male or female (yioe (hijo, hija) or yioe homber (hombre)/ muhd (mujer)” (Fish, G.T., 1970, p.92). The auxiliaries used interchangeably, are “the Spanish-derived ser and the Dutch-derived wòrdu (< Du. worden)”, of which each island may use one more than the other (Wood, R. E., 1972, p.859). The language is very streamlined as an easy to use language without tedious grammar and to the point. Papiamento also has a special tonality that is unique within creole languages. Tonality can be described as the varied change in pitch, which can change the meaning of a word just based on which pitch is used. For example, a heavily tonal language such as Chinese presents the possibility of 5 different meanings for one word simply based on tone. While Papiamento only has two different tones, the tonal aspect could be a sign of age in a language. An example of tonal change would be the Papiamento word bende, which based on tone could be sell or sale (Kouwenberg, 1994). Dr. Bart Jacobs believes that this is a sign that the language had a lot more time to develop and that it was already developed early on, as examples of letters found from the 18th-century show (B. Jacobs, Interview, Jan 10, 2018). The letters show that the elite were writing and speaking it as well. The text found from the 18th century are mostly fragments of letters and show the unique structure of society on the A,B,C islands, in that the elite were not a homogenous group of Dutch, but affluent freed men as well as Sephardic Jews, who chose Papiamento as their intergroup language. Finding these fragments also presents a language that is developed much earlier than other creole languages, in writing. The first letter found in 1775 was "a love letter written in fluent Papiamentu by a Curaçaoan Sephardic Jew to his mistress"(Jacobs, B. & Van der Wahl, M. J., 2015, p.46).

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Dr. Jacobs explains the difference between the Papiamento in the 18th century letters and the Papiamento spoken today.

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Papiamento differs among the islands. For example, Arubans refers to their language as Papiamento, while the people of Curacao say Papiamentu, something that can be quite confusing to people learning about the language and also shows that the language is not really standardized among the A,B,C islands. Dr. Eva Eckkrammer talks about those differences linguistically and politically in the video below. The interesting differences is not just that there are certain words used more than others  or a stronger influence from Spanish or Dutch, but that the Papiamentu on Curacao and Bonaire spell words as they are spoken (phonetically), while Aruban Papiamento interchanges Dutch spelling and Spanish spelling. 

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Phrase

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Papiamento:No scupi den laira, pa e no cay den bo mes cara.

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English:Don't spit upwards, for it will fall back in your own face.

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Portuguese: Não cuspa para cima, pois o cuspe cairá de volta na sua própria cara

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(Littmann, J., 1945, p.57)