Brava Creole

Brava Creole is the name given to the variant of Cape Verdean Creole spoken mainly in the Brava Island of Cape Verde. It belongs to the Sotavento Creoles branch. The speakers of this form of Capeverdean Creole are 8,000 (1.36% of the national population). One of the least spoken being seventh place and one of the firsts to have written literature, in which Eugénio Tavares wrote some of his poems.

Characteristics

Besides the main characteristics of Sotavento Creoles the Brava Creole has also the following ones:

• The progressive aspect of the present is formed by putting stâ before the verbs: stâ + V.
• The sound that originates from Portuguese /ɐ̃w/ (written ão) is /ɐ̃/ rather than /õ/. For example, coraçã /koɾɐˈsɐ̃/, not coraçõ /koɾɐˈsõ/ “heart”; mã /ˈmɐ̃/, not mõ /ˈmõ/ “hand”; razã /ʀɐˈzɐ̃/, not razõ /ʀɐˈzõ/ “reason”.

Vocabulary

Main article: Cape Verdean Creole § Vocabulary

Grammar

Main article: Cape Verdean Creole § Grammar

Phonology

Main article: Cape Verdean Creole § Phonology

Alphabet

Main article: Cape Verdean Creole § Writing_system

References

Main article: Cape Verdean Creole § References

Further reading

• The Creole dialect of the island of Brava (Meintel, Deirdre, 1975) in Miscelânea luso-africana coord. Marius F. Valkhoff
• The syntax of Cape Verdean Creole. The Sotavento Varieties (Baptista, Marlyse, 2002)
• Crioulo de Cabo Verde — Situação Linguística da Zona do Barlavento (Delgado, Carlos Alberto; Praia: IBNL, 2008)

External links

• A short poem in Brava Crioulo on a Cape Verde banknote.