Boa Vista Creole

Boa Vista Creole is the name given to the variant of Cape Verdean Creole spoken mainly in the Boa Vista Island of Cape Verde. It belongs to the Barlavento Creoles branch. This form of Cape Verdean Creole was spoken by 5,000 ppl. (1.13% of the national population) in 2007 and is the least spoken form of Creole in the language. Literature is rarely recorded but one of the speakers who was born on the island is Germano Almeida.

As the island population doubled to over 8,000 in 2010, most of the population continue to speak the form of Cape Verdean Creole, some rarely speak the common Badiu by newcomers or both. Some immigrants abroad continue to speak the Creole form as a second language.

Characteristics

Besides the main characteristics of Barlavento Creoles the Boa Vista Creole has also the following ones:

• The progressive aspect of the present is formed by putting tâ tâ before the verbs: tâ + tâ + V.
• In the verbs that end by ~a, that sound is replaced by when the verb is conjugated with the first person of the singular pronoun. Ex.: panhó-m’ instead of panhâ-m’ “to catch me”, levó-m’ instead of levâ-m’ “to take me”, coçó-m’ instead of coçâ-m’ “to scratch me”.
• The stressed e is always open . Ex.: bucé instead of bocê “you (respectful form), drét’ instead of drêt’ “right”, tchobé instead of tchovê “to rain”. The stressed o is always open . Ex.: bó instead of bô “you”, compó instead of compô “to fix”, tórrt’ instead of tôrt’ “crooked”.
• The sound at the end of syllables is pronounced . Ex.: furrtâ instead of furtâ “to steal”, m’djérr instead of m’djêr “woman”, pórrt’ instead of pôrt’ “harbor”.
• A originating from the junction of and is replaced by . Ex.: cárr instead of cás “which ones”, érr instead of ês “they”, quérr instead of quês “those”.
• A Portuguese (written j in the beginning of words) is partially replaced by . Ex. jantâ instead of djantâ “to dine”, jôg’ instead of djôgu “game”, but in words like djâ “already” and Djõ “John”, the sound remains.

Further reading

• A Parábola do Filho Pródigo no crioulo de Santiago, do Fogo, da Brava, de Santo Antão, de S. Nicolau e da Boa Vista: O crioulo de Cabo Verde (Botelho da Costa, Joaquim Vieira & Custódio José Duarte, 1886)