Papiamento Orthography - Diacritics

Diacritics

The Papiamentu dialect of Curaçao and Bonaire is the only one of the two that makes use of the grave accent ⟨`⟩, the diaeresis or trema ⟨¨⟩ and the acute accent ⟨´⟩. The grave accent and diaeresis are used to distinguish one vowel from another, e.g. bon and bòl, tur and hür, while the acute accent is used to indicate stress within a word. Without an accent, words in Papiamentu take on a consistent manner of emphasis. The stress is always on the last syllable in words ending with a consonant and on the penultimate in words ending with a vowel. Words that do not follow the default stress have an acute accent above the vowel (or second vowel of a diphthong) of the stressed syllable.

Like Spanish, Papiamentu orthography distinguishes between four types of words:

• Palabranan skèrpi or oxytones: words with emphasis on the final syllable.
  • Examples: natural, sapaté
• Palabranan grave or paroxytones: words with emphasis on the penultimate (second to last) syllable.
  • Examples: mésun, buki
• Palabranan esdrúhulo or proparoxytones: from the Spanish word esdrújula, words with emphasis on the antepenultimate (third to last) syllable.
  • Examples: mónseñor, penúltimo
• Palabranan sobresdrúhulo: from the Spanish word sobreesdrújula, words with emphasis on the preantepenultimate (fourth to last) syllable.
  • Examples: álablanka, mónstruoso

Stress is always placed on a syllable with a grave accent, e.g. tèmpo, unless there is another syllable with an acute accent, e.g. kòrtá. As such, vowels with grave accents are not altered to indicate stress on the syllable in which it is located.