On the relevance of Classical Portuguese features in four Atlantic creoles

International audience This paper identifies several 15th/16th-century Portuguese (henceforth Classical Portuguese) features in four Portuguese-lexified creoles, i.e. (1) Cape Verdean Creole, (2) Guinea-Bissau Creole, (3) Papiamentu, and (4) Saramaccan. The last three share with each other the fact that they emerged in areas where social conditions for creolization were not met prior to the 17th century. Therefore, the presence of Classical Portuguese features in their core vocabulary and phonology requires an explanation. This paper argues that the shared features may have been inherited from Cape Verdean Creole.