Papiamento Orthography

Papiamento Orthography

Papiamento has a standardized orthography. There are two dialects of Papiamento, one spoken on the island of Aruba and the other on the islands of Curaçao and Bonaire. The orthographies of these dialects differ slightly. The orthography of the Aruban dialect is more etymological in nature, while the other is more phonemic. Among the differences between the two dialects, one obvious difference is the way the name of the language is written. In Aruba it is called Papiamento, while in Curaçao it is called Papiamentu. Though what is spoken on Bonaire isn't a separate dialect, there it is sometimes called Papiamen. The governments of Curaçao and Aruba formally accepted orthographic rules according to their dialects in 1976 and 1977, respectively.