The discovery, nature, and implications of a Papiamentu text fragment from 1783 (3)
by Bart Jacobs & Marijke J. van der Wal
4. Jan Boufet’s Papiamentu letter
We present the letter as follows: the first line contains the original Papiamentu text; the second line provides the present-day Papiamentu equivalent (using the Curaçao/ Bonaire orthography), followed by the English translation in the third line.
Bovenversiering van een 18de-eeuwse Curaçaose kast/Decorated 18th century Curaçaoan cupboard
1 Mi papa bieda die mi Courasson
Mi papa bida di mi kurason
‘My father, life of my heart’
2 bieni prees toe seeka bo joego doesje
bini lihé seka bo yu dushi
‘come to your sweet son quickly’
3 mi mama ta warda boo, mie jora toer dieja pa mie papa
mi mama ta warda bo, mi [ta] yora tur dia pa mi papa
‘my mother awaits you, I cry all day for my father’
4 Coemda Mie groot mama pa mie ie mie tante nan toer
Kumindá mi wela pa mi i mi tanta nan tur
‘greet my grandmother and all my aunts for me’
5 papa doesje treese oen boenieta son breer pa boo jantje
papa dushi trese un bunita sombré pa bo Jantje
‘Dear father, bring a nice hat for your Jantje’
6 adjoos mie papa bieda die mi Courasson
ayó mi papa, bida di mi kurason
‘Goodbye my father, life of my heart’
7 djoos naa boo saloer pa mie i pa mie mama
dios (du)na bo salú pa mi i pa mi mama
‘may God give you health for me and for my mother’
8 mie groot mama ta manda koemenda boo moetje moetje
mi wela ta manda kumindá bo muchu muchu
‘my grandmother sends you lots of greetings’
9 mie ta bo joego Doe[s]je toena mortoo
mi ta bo yu dushi te na morto
‘I am your sweet son until death do us part’
10 Dit heeft uw Jantje geschreeven, nogmals adjoos vart wel
‘Your Jantje has written this, goodbye once more [and] fare well.’
5. Value of the letter for Papiamentu studies
5.1. Socio-linguistic implications
The four letters, and particularly the Papiamentu fragments contained in them, allow us to draw some conclusions regarding the linguistic profile of the writer, Anna Elisabeth, and her husband Dirk Schermer. Anna Elisabeth must have been a comfortable speaker of Papiamentu – she may well have been a fluent Dutch-Papiamentu bilingual. Although the text is short, evidence of her command of the language is found, for instance, in the use of features that are typical of ‘native’ Papiamentu, such as verbal serialization (manda kumindá send-greet ‘send greetings’, line 8), reduplication (moetje moetje ‘very much’, line 8), and the reduction of duna ‘give’ to naa (line 7) which is typical of (rapidly) spoken Papiamentu.
The fact that the Dutch Curaçaoan Anna Elisabeth was fluent in Papiamentu and used it in letters to her husband is socio-linguistically and historically salient for several (partially overlapping) reasons:
(a) Whereas it was well-known (owing to the private letter from 1775) that Papiamentu had become the main communication vehicle among the Curaçaoan Sephardim by the second half of the 18th century, up to date we had no such empirical information on the role and diffusion of Papiamentu among the Dutch Curaçaoan upper class in that early period. Anna Elisabeth’s letters suggest that it had indeed diffused among the Dutch segment of the Curaçaoan upper class in the course of the 18th century.
(b) Father G.B. Bosch, who visited Curaçao in the 1820s, wrote down his experiences in a 1829 travelogue. Amongst other things, Bosch (1829:212) suggests that the creole was initially more prevalent among women than among men: ‘op Curaçao (…) is een Spaansch patois, papiemento genaamd, de taal, die de Negers en gekleurden, die de kinderen der blanke inwoners en een groot gedeelte van het schoone geslacht bij voorkeur onder elkander spreken’ [‘on Curaçao, a Spanish patois, called Papiemento, is the preferred language among the Negroes and coloureds, the children of the white inhabitants, and a large part of the fair sex’]. With particular respect to Curaçao and Jamaica, Rupert (2012:235) also posits a correlation between gender and creole language acquisition: ‘European women who lived in the colonies frequently picked up creole languages faster than the men, at least in part owing to their close association with domestic servants and their children’s contact with slave children and nannies.’ Anna Elisabeth’s letters provide a unique confirmation that this socio-linguistic state of affairs indeed applied to late-18th-century Curaçao.
Bovenste gedeelte van de Thorakast in de Curaçaose Joodse synagoge/Upper part of the Thora cupboard in the Curaçao synagogue
(c) From the beginnings of the slave trade on Curaçao in the 1650s and the subsequent creolization of the island’s society, the West India Company’s settlement policies aimed at maintaining a strict socio-cultural division between whites and the Afro-Curaçaoans. For instance, slaves were not allowed to become members of the Protestant church and the use of Papiamentu was officially prohibited on plantations and schools (Hartog 1968:148; Fouse 2002:138). Anna Elisabeth addressing her husband in Papiamentu, however, suggests that the West India Company’s prescriptions had only limited impact on the socio-cultural reality. Apparently, there was no way of preventing Papiamentu from making its way into the daily life of the white upper class. In fact, the letters compel us to conclude that the Dutch Anna Elisabeth had a surprisingly positive attitude towards Papiamentu: only then can we account for the fact that she used Papiamentu in private letters to her husband and even chose Papiamentu terms of endearment to refer to him in the letter addressed to her Dutch mother-in-law.
(d) As mentioned previously, Anna Elisabeth’s husband Dirk Cornelis Schermer must at the very least have had a basic knowledge of Papiamentu, even though he had been on Curaçao only for rather brief periods of layover. Being a sailor, he may have had his first encounters with Papiamentu on board ships of the Dutch West India Company (WIC). The case of the Jonge Johannes discussed in §1 suggests that Papiamentu indeed was not uncommon on board ships of the WIC.
[wordt vervolgd/to be continued, klik hier]
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