World Language Map

Where is Papiamento spoken?

Papiamento is an Indo-European language, spoken in Curaçao, Aruba and the Netherlands. It is marked on the map by a ringed point.

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Language families (largest ten)

  • Atlantic-Congo
  • Austronesian
  • Sino-Tibetan
  • Indo-European
  • Afro-Asiatic
  • Nuclear Trans New Guinea
  • Otomanguean
  • Austroasiatic
  • Tai-Kadai
  • Pama-Nyungan

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  • Point A language with no area map. The dot sits at its Glottolog position, in its family colour.

How to read the map. Each colour is a language family: a group of languages that share a common ancestor. The ten largest families have their own colour and every other family is grey. Areas are see-through, so where two languages share a place the colours mix. Tap anywhere to list every language whose area covers that spot. Areas are generalisations drawn from published atlases, many of them decades old, and cities are multilingual, so an area never says that everyone there speaks the language. A dot marks a language that has no area map. The family name is always given in words, because colour alone is hard to tell apart for some people.

Where Papiamento is spoken

Papiamento is spoken in 3 countries: Curaçao, Aruba and the Netherlands. The table gives the share of each country’s people who speak it, from Unicode CLDR, where CLDR has a figure.

CountryShare of populationEstimated speakers
Curaçao81%124,164
Aruba61%76,288
NetherlandsNot givenNot given

Estimated speakers are the CLDR percentage applied to CLDR’s own population figure for the country, so they are rough. A country without a figure may still have speakers: it is listed because the language area, or Glottolog’s record, reaches it.

Papiamento has no area on the map because no open area map covers it. The ringed point is the position Glottolog gives for the language.

How many people speak Papiamento?

Wikidata gives about 321,000 first-language speakers (Ethnologue, 2011). It also lists about 20,000 second-language speakers (Ethnologue, 2011). These figures are approximate: they come from different sources, years and definitions of a speaker.

Status: Not endangered. Glottolog lists it as not endangered: it is still being passed on to children.

Where Papiamento sits in the language family tree

Glottolog classifies Papiamento as follows, from the largest family down to the language itself.

  1. Indo-European
  2. Classical Indo-European
  3. Italic
  4. Latino-Faliscan
  5. Latinic
  6. Imperial Latin
  7. Romance
  8. Italo-Western Romance
  9. Western Romance
  10. Shifted Western Romance
  11. Southwestern Shifted Romance
  12. West Ibero-Romance
  13. Galician Romance
  14. Macro-Portuguese
  15. Upper Guinea Portuguese
  16. Papiamento

Related languages

Other languages in the Upper Guinea Portuguese group:

More about Papiamento

Codes: ISO 639-3 pap, Glottolog papi1253. Glottolog macroarea: South America.

Papiamento is a Romance language, descended from Latin. Latin’s footprint: the Roman Empire at its height → Latin spread along Roman roads →

Questions about Papiamento

Where is Papiamento spoken?

Papiamento is spoken in Curaçao, Aruba and the Netherlands. Unicode CLDR puts it at 81% of the population of Curaçao, which is about 124,164 people. On the map it is shown as a single point, because no open area map covers it.

How many people speak Papiamento?

Wikidata gives about 321,000 first-language speakers (Ethnologue, 2011). Speaker numbers are approximate and differ between sources: counting who is a speaker, and whether to include second-language speakers, is not settled. It also lists about 20,000 second-language speakers (Ethnologue, 2011).

Which language family is Papiamento in?

Glottolog places Papiamento in the Indo-European family, in the branch Classical Indo-European, Italic, Latino-Faliscan, Latinic, Imperial Latin, Romance, Italo-Western Romance, Western Romance, Shifted Western Romance, Southwestern Shifted Romance, West Ibero-Romance, Galician Romance, Macro-Portuguese and Upper Guinea Portuguese.

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