ALUPEC

The Alfabeto Unificado para a Escrita do Caboverdiano (Unified Alphabet for Cape Verdean Writing), commonly known as ALUPEC, is the alphabet that was officially recognized by the Cape Verdean government to write the Cape Verdean Creole.

Description

It is a phonetic system based on the Latin alphabet, and only states which letters should be used to represent each sound. This system does not establish the orthography rules, in how each word should be written or in how the words should be written within the sentence context. That is why the Cape Verdean Creole writing is not standardized yet, the same word or the same sentence may appear represented in different ways. Each Cape Verdean is still writing idiosyncratically, i. e., each person that writes in Creole writes in his/her own dialect, own sociolect and own idiolect.

The ALUPEC claims to be a system composed by 23 letters and four digraphs, in the following order:

A B S D E F G H I J DJ L LH M N NH N^̈ O P K R T U V X TX Z

What the ALUPEC does not specify is that it also has the letter Y and the digraph RR. The ALUPEC comes close to a perfect phonetic system where almost every letter represents only one sound, and almost every sound is represented by only one letter. The vowels may have a graphic accent, but the system does not consider the letters with accents as separated letters.

Letter	Sound according the IPA	Description
a	/a/ or /ɐ/	like a in Portuguese pá or like a in (European) Portuguese para
á	/a/	like a in Portuguese pá
â	/ɐ/	like a in (European) Portuguese para
b	/b/	like b in English but
s	/s/	always like s in Portuguese sim, never like z in Portuguese zero
d	/d/	like d in Portuguese dedo
e	/e/	like e in Portuguese dedo, never like i in Portuguese filho
é	/ɛ/	like e in Portuguese ferro
ê	/e/	like e in Portuguese dedo
f	/f/	like f in English for
g	/ɡ/	always like g in English go, never like s in English pleasure
h		used only in the digraphs lh and nh
i	/i/ or /j/	like i in Portuguese vi or like y in English yes
í	/i/	like i in Portuguese vi
j	/ʒ/	like s in English measure
dj	/ʤ/	like j in English just
l	/l/	like l in French elle
lh	/ʎ/	like lh in Portuguese filho
m	/m/	like m in English me
n	/n/	like n in Portuguese não
nh	/ɲ/	like nh in Portuguese ninho
n̈ (n with diaeresis)	/ŋ/	like ng in English king
o	/o/	like o in Portuguese amor never like u in Portuguese tu
ó	/ɔ/	like o in Portuguese porta
ô	/o/	like o in Portuguese amor
p	/p/	like p in Portuguese para
k	/k/	like c in Portuguese caco
r	/ɾ/ or /ʀ/	like r in Portuguese porta or like r in Portuguese rato
rr	/ʀ/	like rr in Portuguese ferro
t	/t/	like t in Portuguese tu
u	/u/ or /w/	like u in Portuguese tu or like w in English wet
ú	/u/	like u in Portuguese tu
v	/v/	like v in English vain
x	/ʃ/	like sh in English ship, never like the Portuguese words sexo, próximo or exame
tx	/ʧ/	like ch in English chair
z	/z/	like z in Portuguese zero

Additional notes:

• The letter y is used only to represent the copulative conjunction (corresponding to «e» in Portuguese).
• The letter r has the sound /ʀ/ only in the beginning of the words.
• The letter n in the end of the syllables is not pronounced, it only indicates the nasality of the preceding vowel.
• The personal pronoun that represents the subject form of the first person of the singular is always written with the capital letter N, whatever the pronunciation, whatever the Creole variant.
• The graphic accents are used to indicate the stressed syllable in proparoxitone words, and to indicate the stressed syllable in oxitone words that do not end in a consonant; the acute accent is also used in paroxitone words when the stressed syllable has the sounds /ɛ/ or /ɔ/.

History

The ALUPEC has emerged in 1994, from the alphabet proposed by the Colóquio Linguístico de Mindelo, in 1979.

In July 20th, 1998, the ALUPEC was approved by the Conselho de Ministros de Cabo Verde, for a five years trial period. According to the same Council, the ALUPEC would “consider the diversity of the Cape Verdean Language in all the islands, and only after that trial period it would be considered its introduction in schools”.

In 2005, the ALUPEC was recognized by the Cape Verdean government as a viable system for writing the Cape Verdean Creole, being until now the only one officially recognized by the same government. In spite of being the only one officially recognized, the same law allows the usage of alternative writing models, “as long they are presented in a systematized and scientific way”.

Present situation

Nevertheless, the ALUPEC has been receiving a massive rejection by Cape Verdean users. This rejection is due to the fact that the ALUPEC shocks with orthographic traditions that the Cape Verdeans have been following, which are Portuguese orthographic traditions (see Portuguese alphabet and Portuguese orthography).

The strategy of the ALUPEC was to create a phonetic alphabet, having this characteristic the goal of simplifying the writing, since Portuguese frequently uses different letters to represent the same sound (like c, q and sometimes k to represent the sound /k/) and the same letter may represent different sounds (like s that may sound /s/, /z/, /ʃ/ or /ʒ/). There are some people, however, that disagree of this approach. Since the actual objective is having the Creole officialized alongside with Portuguese, a different orthography for Creole might render the Portuguese learning more difficult for native Creole speakers as it might render Creole learning more difficult for foreign speakers.

In spite of the rejection of the ALUPEC by Cape Verdeans, the same is already in use in bilingual teaching in the USA and in the Netherlands, i. e., among Cape Verdean descendants that have little contact with the Portuguese language.

External links

• ALFABÉTU KABUVERDIANU (ALUPEC)
• Na diféza di un skrita pa kriolu di Kabu Verdi (in Creole)
• Pa Nu Skrebe Na Skola (in Portuguese)
• Orthographic guidelines for writing São Vicentean Kriol — a proposal for São Vicente Creole writing