Maio Creole is the name given to the variant of Cape Verdean Creole spoken mainly in the Maio Island of Cape Verde. It belongs to the Sotavento Creoles branch. It numbers the entire island population which includes a small part which also speaks Portuguese, in 2005, the percentage was 1.36%. [1]
It is the eighth and one of the least spoken Cape Verdean Creole and is after Brava and ahead of Boa Vista.
Besides the main characteristics of Sotavento Creoles the Maio Creole has also the following ones:
Papiamento or Papiamentu is a Portuguese-based creole language spoken in the Dutch Caribbean. It is the most widely spoken language on the ABC islands.
Maio is the easternmost of the Sotavento islands of Cape Verde. Maio is located south of the island of Boa Vista and east of Santiago. Administratively, the island forms one concelho (municipality): Maio.
Portuguese creoles are creole languages which have Portuguese as their substantial lexifier. The most widely-spoken creoles influenced by Portuguese are Cape Verdean Creole, Guinea-Bissau Creole and Papiamento.
Cape Verdean Creole is a Portuguese-based creole language spoken on the islands of Cape Verde. It is the native creole language of virtually all Cape Verdeans and is used as a second language by the Cape Verdean diaspora.
Cape Verdean Americans are an ethnic group of Americans whose ancestors were Cape Verdean. In 2010, the American Community Survey stated that there were 95,003 Americans living in the US with Cape Verdean ancestors.
Santiago Creole is the name given to the Cape Verdean Creole spoken mainly on Santiago Island of Cape Verde. It belongs to the Sotavento Creoles branch of Creole.
Portuguese is spoken in a number of African countries and is the official language in six African countries: Angola, Cape Verde, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and São Tomé and Príncipe. There are Portuguese-speaking communities in most countries of Southern Africa, a mixture of Portuguese settlers and Angolans and Mozambicans who left their countries during the civil wars. A rough estimate has it that there are about 14 million people who use Portuguese as their sole mother tongue across Africa, but depending on the criteria applied, the number might be considerably higher, since many Africans speak Portuguese as a second language, in countries like Angola and Mozambique, where Portuguese is an official language, but also in countries like South Africa and Senegal, thanks to migrants coming from Portuguese-speaking countries. Some statistics claim that there are over 60 million Portuguese speakers in the continent.
Cape Verdean Portuguese is the dialect of Portuguese spoken in Cape Verde.
São Vicente Creole is the name given to the variant of Cape Verdean Creole spoken mainly in the São Vicente Island of Cape Verde. It belongs to the Barlavento Creoles branch. It is the second most widely spoken Cape Verdean creole. It has produced literature from a lot of writers and musicians including Sergio Frusoni and many more.
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. 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.
Santo Antão Creole, is the name given to the variant of Cape Verdean Creole spoken mainly in the Santo Antão Island of Cape Verde. It belongs to the Barlavento Creoles branch. It is ranked third of nine in the number of speakers and it is before Fogo and after the neighbouring São Vicente.
Fogo Creole is the name given to the variant of Cape Verdean Creole spoken mainly in the Fogo of Cape Verde. It belongs to the Sotavento Creoles branch. The rankings of this form of Cape Verdean Creole is fourth after Santo Antão and ahead of Sal.
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. 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.
Sal Creole is the name given to the variant of Cape Verdean Creole spoken mainly in the island of Sal of Cape Verde. It belongs to the Barlavento Creoles branch.
São Nicolau Creole is the variant of Cape Verdean Creole spoken mainly in the São Nicolau Island of Cape Verde. It belongs to the Barlavento Creoles branch. Literature is rarely recorded but the form of the Capeverdean Creole has been recorded in music.
The Alfabeto Unificado para a Escrita do Caboverdiano, commonly known as ALUPEC, is the alphabet that was officially recognized by the Cape Verdean government to write Cape Verdean Creole.
A lexifier is the language that provides the basis for the majority of a pidgin or creole language's vocabulary (lexicon). Often this language is also the dominant, or superstrate language, though this is not always the case, as can be seen in the historical Mediterranean Lingua Franca. In mixed languages, there are no superstrates or substrates, but instead two or more adstrates. One adstrate still contributes the majority of the lexicon in most cases, and would be considered the lexifier. However, it is not the dominant language, as there are none in the development of mixed languages, such as in Michif.
Tabanka is a musical genre of Cape Verdean music.
Cape Verde or Cabo Verde, officially the Republic of Cabo Verde, is an island country and archipelagic state of West Africa in the central Atlantic Ocean, consisting of ten volcanic islands with a combined land area of about 4,033 square kilometres (1,557 sq mi). These islands lie between 600 and 850 kilometres west of Cap-Vert, the westernmost point of continental Africa. The Cape Verde islands form part of the Macaronesia ecoregion, along with the Azores, the Canary Islands, Madeira and the Savage Isles.
The Badiu people are a West African ethnic group predominantly located on the island of Santiago, Cape Verde. They trace their ancestry to enslaved Africans brought to the island during the transatlantic slave trade. The Badiu have developed a unique cultural identity influenced by their African heritage, historical experiences, and the geographic features of Santiago. Today, they form a significant part of the population on Santiago, the largest and most populous island in Cape Verde.