Thank you for joining me for this episode of Speaking Tongues- the podcast in conversation with multilinguals. Today’s conversation we are heading back to one of my favorite regions in the world to talk about Papiamento with Keisha Weil, a PhD candidate and Linguistic Anthropologist. In this recording Keisha was talking to me from Aruba where Papiamento is widely spoken and she has been conducting her research in the language!
In this episode, Keisha tells us why Papiamento is considered a creole language and we learn why it is significant that Papiamento is one of the official languages of the Caribbean. We talk about the languages that have influenced Papiamento, the stigmas that come with a language being classified as a creole and she tells us the surprising way in which kids in Aruba and Curacao relate to the English language. And keep listening to find out which language kids in Aruba aren’t too interested in because it’s considered the “language of their parents”.
In talking about creole languages, we discussed how a number of languages around the world that could technically be classified as creole languages but aren’t and languages that are easily classified as creole tend to be those spoken by black and brown people. I think it’s important that we continue to pay attention to how such classifications along racial lines can be detrimental to the populations for whom these languages are a culmination of their histories and expressions of their cultures and identities. We have to continue to regard the value of everyone’s language equally and my hope is that with this podcast we are doing the work of adding value to creole languages.
With that said, Big thank you to Keisha Weil for talking with us about her studies and research! if you enjoy this conversation you can find links to the topics we discuss in the show notes and please don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review so that other language lovers like yourselves can find the show!
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Instagram @kiwiel
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