Languages in Cape Verde

The official language of instruction and government is Portuguese. But the unofficial one spoken by most, if not all, is the Cape Verdean Creole also known as kabuverdianu or simply called “Creole” or “Kriolu”. The Creole spoken in Cape Verde is based on Portuguese and is believed to be the oldest and still living language and also has the most numerous native speakers. Amazingly, each island has devised its own version or way of speaking this language. These nine dialects or variants as Cape Verdean scholars prefer to call them are further divided into two branches; the Sotavento Creoles, which comprises the southern variants of Brava, Fogo, Maio and Santiago and the Barlavento Creoles which includes the northern variants of Boa Vista, Sal, Santo Antao, Sao Nicolau and Sao Vicente.

There is no clear explanation as to how Cape Verdean Creole started but there are three theories vying to explain this. The first theory believes that the Portuguese themselves created it by simplifying their own language to make it easier for the African slaves to understand and use it. The second argues that it was the Africans themselves who invented it by using Western African grammar but using Portuguese lexicon or words instead of African. Still the third theory insists that the mixed population of Europeans particularly the Portuguese and Africans that were born in the islands have developed this unique language using the grammar common to them. This would also explain the existence of the various variants although they differ in words spoken they share the same grammatical structure.