Portuguese Creoles

This book by Nicolas Quint, researcher at the French Centre National de Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), presents a detailed treatment of African el-ements in the Santiago variety of the Portuguese-lexicon creole spoken in the Cape Verde Archipelago. The book is a bilingual Portuguese–French edition. Originally, it is in fact a translation from an English contribution by Quint to the volume Black through White, edited by Angela Bartens and Philip Baker, and due to appear with Battlebridge. The edition under review additionally features an informative preface written by ManuelVeiga, until recently Minister of Education of Cape Verde.

Capeverdean (CV) is the mother tongue of more than a million people living in, or
originating from, the archipelago of Cape Verde, situated about 500 km west of Dakar
(Senegal). As a Portuguese-based Creole, this language obviously has many Portuguesederived
items in its vocabulary, although there are often significant phonetic changes (see Quint 2000a: 53-139) such as:
CV obi  ‘to hear’ < Port. ouvir
CV nabidja ‘heifer’ < Port. novilha.
Nevertheless, not all CV words derive from Portuguese; indeed, some quite common CV
words can be traced back to diverse African languages, e.g.
CV djobi ‘to look at’ < Mandinka juubee.
CV djáki ‘bull calf’ < Wolof yëkk.
In this article, I examine the importance of this African stratum and explore what African
words and expressions in CV can tell us about the origins of this language and, more
generally, about the formation of Afro-European creoles.

Capeverdean (or Capeverdean Creole) is the mother tongue of the famous singer Cesária Évora and of more than a million people worldwide.
This book, one of the first of its kind in English, provides you with a rare and comprehensive insight into the language and culture of Cape Verde.
By following a series of lessons, which gradually increase in difficulty, you will be able to learn the basics of the Capeverdean as spoken on the island of Santiago (which is the most widely used), and also gain some useful knowledge about the varieties spoken on the other islands. Furthermore, this
book comprises exercises with model answers, cultural information, grammar notes, vocabulary lists (Capeverdean-English and English-Capeverdean), 45 photographs, and four indexes. Collectively these will give you a thorough understanding of the language and culture of Cape Verde.
Let’s Speak Capeverdean is aimed primarily at English speakers who want to learn this language, but it may also be useful to people from Cape Verde who already speak it but now live in an English-speaking country and who would like to be able to read and write it. The vocabulary lists and cultural information provide a good starting point for tourists visiting Cape Verde, as
well as those who are simply curious about the language and culture but are not able to commit much time to studying them.

Rey Siñu, traduction du "Petit Prince" en créole casamançais

Ce vendredi 29 mai 2015 a eu lieu la présentation officielle de "Rey Siñu" (éditeur Tintenfass), traduction du livre "Le petit prince" d’Antoine de Saint-Exupéry en créole casamançais.

Cette présentation, s'est déroulée en présence de Nicolas Quint, chercheur au CNRS en linguistique au laboratoire du LLACAN ( Langage, Langues et Cultures d'Afriques noire), et Joseph Jean François Nunez, doctorant au LLACAN, co-traducteurs de cette édition en créole de casamance

Ce lancement officiel du Petit Prince en casamançais à Paris a été l'occasion d'une lecture d'extraits en casamançais ainsi qu'en capverdien et en plusieurs variantes du portugais, et aussi d'écouter le musicien capverdien Téofilo Chantre.

Le lancement de ce livre à eu l'honneur de la présence de :
- Philippe Barbry, ambassadeur de France au Cap-Vert
- José Filipe de Moraes Cabral, ambassadeur du Portugal en France
- Paul Badji, ambassadeur du Sénégal en France
- Edison Luiz da Rosa Junior, attaché culturel de l'ambassade du Brésil en France.

Un projet mené à bien grâce aux soutiens de :
- La librairie Portugaise & Brésilienne de Paris (Michel Chandeigne)
- Projet de recherche LABEX EFL du CNRS,
- L’Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF)

Librairie Portugaise - 19/21 rue des Fossés Saint-Jacques, Place de l’Estrapade, 75005 Paris.