Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures Online

1. Introduction ⇫ ¶

Fa d’Ambô is the language of the island of Annobón, which is situated in the Gulf of Guinea, West Africa. It probably developed from the creole of São Tomé as it was spoken at the beginning of the sixteenth century (on Santome, see Hagemeijer (2012) in this volume). Although no written sources are available to confirm this, the history of São Tomé and the large amount of shared lexical and grammatical features seem to leave no doubt.

The number of Fa d’Ambô speakers is estimated at 4,500–5,000. Most of them live on the island of Annobón and in Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea. On Annobón, people speak Fa d’Ambô most of the time, while they speak Spanish, the official language of the country, only in formal contexts, e.g. in the educational system. In Malabo the situation is much more complicated as it is a melting pot of languages, including the vernacular language Pichi, an English-based creole (see Yakpo (2012) in this volume). Probably close to 100% of the men are at least bilingual, as they usually go to Malabo to work. For women this percentage is lower. Some of them have never left the island and have used Spanish only in school.

2. Sociohistorical background ⇫ ¶

Annobón was uninhabited when it was discovered by the Portuguese in the second half of the fifteenth century. It is probable that the first inhabitants of Annobón were sent there from São Tomé at the beginning of the sixteenth century to work as slaves on the plantations. Throughout the centuries the inhabitants have lived in high isolation. The plantation owners only passed by occasionally and, although we know from ship diaries that ships called at Annobón in order to take in fresh water and oranges and/or to barter, they never stayed for a long period of time. The islanders themselves did not have the opportunity to leave the island as other islands were much too far away to reach in their canoes. This situation did not change when Portugal ceded the island to Spain in 1771.

Fa d’Ambô probably developed from sixteenth-century São Tomense (Ferraz 1979). Although no written sources are available to confirm this hypothesis, the history of São Tomé and the large amount of shared lexical and grammatical features seem to leave no doubt. Due to its isolation, Fa d’Ambô developed with little influence from outside, and it is still fully Portuguese-based with very few lexical items borrowed from Spanish. Both creoles are still very close nowadays.

The first known written document of the language is an article by Schuchardt (1888). It was followed a few years later by a grammatical description of 30 pages written by Father Vila (1891). The best-known and most elaborated grammatical description is by Father Barrena (1957), who lived on the island for many years. More recently Ferraz (1975) wrote a paper on the origin and development of the four Gulf of Guinea creoles (see also Ferraz 1983). Some years later, de Granda Gutiérrez (1985, 1986, 1988) published on the language from a linguistic and socio-historical point of view. Finally there are a number of linguistic papers written by myself (Post 1992–2000).

3. Sociolinguistic situation ⇫ ¶

As already stated, Fa d’Ambô is spoken by 4,500 to 5,000 people, and most of them are bilingual. Most children are monolingual in Fa d’Ambô until they begin to attend school on Annobón. People are proud of their language, speak it in all everyday situations among themselves, and it is not probable that it will disappear soon.

However, Fa d’Ambô is changing. The language as spoken by the older generation is disappearing, while some of the younger people are tending to shift toward Spanish by using Spanish or annobonized Spanish words and Spanish influence on the syntactic and semantic level. This phenomenon is rather weak on Annobón itself but frequent in Malabo where half of the speakers live. This is probably due to the fact that, in Malabo, Spanish is often used outside the house as a vernacular language. The reason for this is that, besides Fa d’Ambô, there are two other important ethnic groups with their own native languages (Bubi and Fang, both Bantu languages) that live here.

4. Phonology ⇫ ¶

Fa d’Ambô has a system of five standard oral vowels (see Table 1). These vowels are mostly short, but in some words long vowels do occur. Syllables with long vowels are not obligatorily stressed, but they are always pronounced with a high rise tone, while the following syllable is pronounced with a high tone. For example [pátu] H-H ‘bird’ vs. [pá:tu] LH-H ‘plate’, [dénʧi] H-H ‘tooth’ vs. [dé:nʧi] LH-H ‘in front of’ or [kesé] H-H ‘to forget’ vs. [ke:sé] LH-H ‘to grow up’. There are very few examples where vowel length is distinctive.

The oral phonemes all have a nasal counterpart. When followed by a nasal consonant they normally nasalize and absorb the consonant. In word-final position this is always the case, whereas at the end of a syllable in a word-internal position one can find the oral as well as the nasal realization followed by a nasal consonant or not: The same noun ampán ‘bread’ can be realized as [ãpã], [ãmpã] and [ampã].

There are 24 consonants in Fa d’Ambô (see Table 2), of which s/∫ and z/ʤ are in complementary distribution: ∫ and ʤ appear before i; s and z appear before the other vowels: syinku ‘five’ vs. seisy(i) ‘six’. Fa d’Ambô has undergone lambdacism, so the liquid /r/ is absent in the language, and only its counterpart /l/ is found. There are four prenasalized plosives: /mb/, /nt/, /nd/, and /ng/: mbulu ‘banana bread’, mbaya ‘bark’, ntela ‘star’, ntelu ‘entirely’, nda ‘walk’, ndese ‘shoot (of a plant)’, ngatu ‘cat’, nge ‘person’.

[x] vs. [k] can sometimes be found in free variation as is the case in [sxa] vs. [ska] ‘progressive’ or [xaz(a)] vs. [kaz] ‘house’, but [xadji] ‘that house’ never changes.

Although a few words are distinguished by high vs. low tone, Fa d’Ambô seems to no longer be a tone language. The accent normally falls on the penultimate syllable and except for these few words no tone differentiation is made.

The syllable structure is nearly always CV- CV-C(V), i.e. words start with a consonant and end with a vowel, which is often dropped: xasol(o) ‘dog’ batel(u) ‘canoe’. Words starting with a vowel do exist but are not very frequent: oyo ‘eye’, abada ‘fruit’.

5. Noun phrase ⇫ ¶

The noun is invariable. If the noun is animate, gender can be expressed by adding miela ‘female’ or napay ‘male, man’.

(1)     mina    miela             /           mina  napay

         child    female                      child  male

         ‘girl/daughter’                    ‘boy/son’

Plural is normally Ø-marked (2). It is expressed only if necessary. If so this is done with a plural demonstrative (3), a numeral (4), a quantitative (5), or reduplication, in which case it indicates the inclusion of all the members of that noun (6) (Post 1998b):

(2)     povu         d’Ambô

         people of.Annobón

         ‘the people of Annobón’

(3)     galafa-nen-syi

         bottle-PL-DEM

         ‘those bottles’

(4)     batelu  tisyi

         canoe   three

         ‘three canoes’

(5)     xadyi    muntu

         house  much

         ‘many houses’

(6)     ngolo-ngolo

         shell~shell

         ‘all the shells’

Articles are preposed to the noun. They are only used when felt necessary. The definite article is expressed by na and the indefinite by article wan or an for singular (cf. 11) and zuguan for plural (cf. 12). Some of my informants suggested that the definite article na is the plural marker for +human nouns. However, many examples in my database show that this marker is used both for singular (7) and plural (8), and although it seems to occur most frequently in combination with human nouns, it is combined with animate (cf. 9) and inanimate (cf. 10) nouns as well.

(7)     na-may                 banku

         ART-woman   white

         ‘the white woman’

(8)     Ngatu-syi        namsedyi bé        iai        sa        xa          na          dyividyil.

         cat-DEM        2PL          see       there   COP   thing     ART     neighbour

         ‘The cat you have seen belongs to the neighbours.’

(9)     na    xasolo

         ART    dog

         ‘the dogs’

(10)   ku     no     ten       sxa        ma       na-batelu

         that   1PL  ITER  PROG   take    ART-canoes

         ‘that we take the canoes’

(11)   wan                   navin-balea    an-nge

         ART.INDF      boat-whale     a-person’

         ‘a whaler’

(12)   zuguan      nge

         indf.art     person

         ‘some people’

A combination of the preposed article with one (or more) of the postposed modifiers seen in (2)-(6) is common:

(13)   na    mina-nensyi

         ART    child-DEM.PL

         ‘these children’

(14)   na-mina            tesy

         ART.PL-child  three

         ‘the three children’

Adjectives are invariable. In a noun phrase, they follow the noun and precede demonstratives. Demonstratives express opposition between proximal (sai, syi) and distal (sala, ski), and between presentative (sai, sala), and absentative (syi, ski). They are postposed to the noun and adjectives. Plural is formed by putting nen, neñ before the singular form (cf. 15). If used independently, the demonstrative is preceded by i- (cf. 16).

(15)   galafa  kitsyi     vedyi-(nen)-sai

         bottle   small    green-(PL)-DEM

         ‘this(/these) small green bottle(s)’

(16)   I-se                 xata     tasyi.

         3SG-DEM      stay     behind

         ‘That one stays behind.’

Ordinal and cardinal numerals are identical except for the numeral ‘one’, which as an ordinal appears as pimelu, pime, ‘first’ and as xabamentu ‘last’. They follow the noun except for the weak form of the cardinal wan, an ‘one’, which precedes it and except for the ordinal pimelu ‘first’, which is found in both positions.

1 uña, uñ/wan, an  2 dosu, dosy                      3 tisy(i)

4 xátul(u)                 5 syinku                             6 sésy

7 séte                        8 útu                                  9 nov(i)

10 (an) desy(i)         11 seúnu, andesyi ku uña                12 sedús, andesyi ku dús, etc.

20 désyi-dús             30 désyi-tísy, etc.

100 amaú, séntu      200 séntu dús, etc.

1,000 mili, andesyi sentu

This gives us cardinal bare combinations like (17) or with a noun (18), and ordinal combinations as in (19)–(21):

(17)   andesyi-sentu-ku-novi      ku         desyi-novi     ku     syinku

         ten hundred-and-nine     and  ten-nine   and   five

         ‘1995’

(18)   andesy midu      ku     dúsi

         ten       month   and   two

         ‘twelve months’

(19)   Isai   sa   tumbul   syinku.

         that   be   fifth       drum

         ‘That is the fifth drum.’

(20)   pimelu   mina-syi

         first       child-DEM

         ‘the first child’

(21)   moto    xabamentu

         car       last

         ‘the last car’

The comparison of the adjective is expressed as shown in Table 4.

Dependent and independent personal pronouns only differ partially in the first and third person singular. The same is true for adnominal possessives (see Table 5).

The possessive determiner of the 3rd person singular is obligatorily preceded by the preposition de ‘of’. The indefinite pronouns differentiate between +human a ‘(some)one’ (cf. 22), bo ‘you’ (cf. 23), nge ‘person’ (cf. 24) and -human xa ‘thing’ and kuzu ‘thing’ (Post 2000). A is used in utterances containing a message that could affect anybody except the hearer. It only appears in subject position. Bo is used when the message includes the hearer. It appears in the different positions like nge, which refers to a person not further specified. Kuzu (or xuzu) (cf. 25) is the long form alternative of xa (cf. 26). It seems to appear only in sentence-final position when xa would stand on its own and its use would be excluded, but whenever a demonstrative or negation marker is added after it, xa appears again. Finally a -human (cf. 27) can show up but is used then just as a dummy to fill in the empty subject position.

(22)   A           fa      Ambô         na          saku    laya-fa.

         INDF    say    Annobón   NEG     have    spider-NEG

         ‘They say that on the island of Annobón there are no spiders.’

(23)   Bo       té-o,                 bo         xa          kum(u).

         INDF  have-EMPH   INDF    EVID    eat

         ‘If you have, you eat.’

(27)   A         sa        pé      solo.

         3.imp   evid    put    sun

         ‘The sun shines.’

6. Verb phrase ⇫ ¶

Fa d’Ambô has one tense marker, one mood marker, and two aspect markers; they are used in this order. All combinations of the markers are possible, except for the combination of ske and sxa.

Zero marking is very common in Fa d’Ambô. TMA markers are used to add information to the sentence. If that information is not necessary or once the situation in the story is placed in its context with the help of TMA markers, they are often left out from then on until the situation changes. This is different when an informant is asked to translate context-free sentences. In that case he or she is much more inclined to use all the TMA markers in order to stay as close as possible to the meaning of the sentence. Some speakers use ga instead of xa for 1SG.

(28)   a.         Ineni   xa     bibe   da     piska.

                     3PL     EVID         live   give  fish

                     ‘They make a living of fishing.’

         b.         Amu                    xa                        bi.

                     1SG                     REALIS/HAB   come

                     ‘I used to/ordinarily/(certainly) will come.’

(29)   Am    na            sa               mule-f

         1SG  NEG        REALIS    die-NEG

         ‘I haven’t died yet. / I did not die.’

(30)   Se        na-pé          xa            sa               ma    masyivín,…

         and     PL-adult    EVID      REALIS    take  child

         ‘And the adults took the children, ...’

(31)   Zwan   sxa  kumu   ampan.

         John    PROG  eat    bread

         ‘John is eating bread.’

(32)   Am’   ga        sxa      zuda    ineni.

         1sg    HAB   PROG help    3PL

         ‘I always helped them (lit. … was helping them).’

(33)   Dyia-beza       poxodulu      bi        sxa          laba       awa-poto-sai.

         day-already   people          ANT      PROG     wash     water-lake-DEM

         ‘Formerly people washed themselves in this lake. /Formerly people washed in this lake.’

(34)   Ineni   bi    ske  tabaya.

         3PL     ANT    IRR work

         ‘They would have worked. / They would have gone to work.’

(35)  Bi      ske   sa   gavu  masyi  mindya  xadyi.

         ANT   IRR  be   good more   stay       house

         ‘It would have been better to stay at home.’

(36)   M’     bi    ske  xa       tabayai.

         1SG  ANT IRR  EVID  work.there

         ‘I would have been working here.’

Fa d’Ambô has two verbal negation particles: na, which precedes the verb and the TMA particles, indicates the starting point of the negation; -f (or -af or -fa) appears at the end of the sentence. In a nominal clause the first marker is omitted.

(37)   Am    na       sa   alusu       pa     am  kumu-f.

         1SG  NEG   be   rice    for  1SG  eat-NEG

         ‘I do not have rice (for me) to eat.’

(38)   Bo     na     fa    no     bo     bi-f.

         2SG  NEG   say 1PL   2SG  come-NEG

         ‘You do not tell us that you will come.’

(39)   Bo     fa    no     bo      na       bi-f.

         2SG  say 1PL  2SG  NEG   come-NEG

         ‘You tell us that you will not come.’

(40)   ku        bo-f

         ‘with   2SG-NEG’

         ‘not with you’

Modality can be expressed either by a verb or by a complex marker consisting of various particles that are sometimes followed by the indefinite pronoun xa. In the latter case the expression of modality appears at the beginning of the sentence.

(41)   Kenge  fo   fe?

         who     can do

         ‘Who can do it?’

(42)   M’-en         ngo       fe-f.

         1SG-NEG  want      do-NEG

         ‘I don’t want to do it.’

(43)   […]   pa   nge-syi            xa        sa    ke     ma-ai-ai    […]

         […]   for  person-DEM EVID be   want take-here-here […]

         ‘[…] so that the one who wants to suffer […]’

(44)   Bi        ta pa  no     ba-i.

         ANT   ?   for  1PL   go-there

         ‘We should go.’

(45)   Lama-xa   pa  no […]

         reign-thing  for  1PL   […]

         ‘we should […]’

(46)   Tankexa  pé-se             xanta          gav(u).

         it.seems      man-DEM   sing            good

         ‘This man seems to be a good singer.’

Serial verb constructions are common in Fa d’Ambô (see Table 8; Post 1992). Most of the modifying verbs seem to have grammaticalized into verbal markers and therefore do not take TMA markers whereas the lexical verb in the sentence does. Some of the modifying verbs precede the lexical verb, others follow it, and finally some of them can be found in both positions. Examples are given in (47)-(51).

(47)   Am    fo      Pale  bi.

         1SG  leave Pale  come

         ‘I come from Pale.’

(48)   M’       piza-l          ba   omal.

         1SG     push-3SG  go   sea

         ‘I pushed him into the sea.’

(49)   na-min-nensyi              ku          ma         mu         bi-ai

         ART-child-DEM.PL   that       take       1SG       come-here

         ‘the boys who brought me here’

(50)   se         am       ba        da        nge        paxada.

         and     1SG    go        give     people   slap   

         and I went to hit them.

(51)   Amu  da     wan     kuzu      da     bo.

         1SG  give   ART   thing     give   2SG

         ‘I gave you something.’

7. Simple sentences ⇫ ¶

Word order in Fa d’Ambô is SVO. In ditransitive sentences, the indirect object precedes the direct object. The indirect object is not marked by a preposition. Prepositional phrases, adverbials, subordinate clauses, etc. are generally located before or after the core arguments.

(52)   Pay      da     mina    dyielu.

         father  give   child    money

         ‘The father gives (the) money to the child.’

(53)   Mala   xoze  wa       bluz  ku     guya.

         Mary   sew   ART   shirt with  needle

         ‘Mary sews a shirt with a needle.’

(54)   Bibi     patu-syi      na     xa          lega     pa        ten       li-f.

         Bibi     bird-DEM NEG EVID    let        for       have    3SG-NEG

         ‘Bibi is a bird that does not let itself be caught.’

True passives do not exist in Fa d’Ambô, but “functional passives” do show up. A passive reading is realized by using the generic pronoun a ‘someone’ as the grammatical subject while leaving the other constituents in their normal order. The semantic subject, if present, is placed at the end of the utterance (Post 1995b).

(55)   A                xa        baya    ba-tela          na-name       tesyi.

         GENER     EVID  dance  dance-land  ART-sister  three

         ‘The traditional dances are danced by three friends.’

(57)   Lala       fumo-fumozu a                   xa          be        ngolo.

         beach    pretty-pretty  GENER       EVID    see       shell

         ‘Shells can be seen on the gorgeous beach.’

The reflexive voice can be overtly expressed but is often left implicit. The circumstances in which the sentence is uttered must indicate whether the sentence should be taken as a reflexive or not. In the rare cases reflexive marking does appear, it is expressed by ogé ‘body’.

(58)   Poxodul        ta         laba     tudya        potosai.

         person          ITER  wash   formerly  lake.DEM

         ‘Formerly people washed (themselves) in this lake.’

(59)   Yabeza   poxodul bi       ska        laba   ogé    poto-se.

         before    people   ANT PROG   wash body lake-DEM

         ‘Formerly people washed themselves in this lake.’

(60)   Se   am    ga        mete  pé      ogé.

         and 1SG  EVID put    put   body

         ‘And I dressed (myself).’

The reciprocal voice is rarely used in an explicit way like the utterance below in which an-nge ‘a person’ is used:

A causative relationship is expressed by the verb fe ‘make’ and the conjunction ke ‘that’.

(62)   Xatu         Sanbatyit sé        fe      ke        se        fa      i        bi         sxa      dantsyi

         because   John        know  make  that     know  say    3SG  ANT   PROG  ill

         ‘John told me he/she was ill.’ (Lit. ‘Because John knew it made that I knew that he/she had been ill.’)

8. Complex sentences ⇫ ¶

The coordination conjunctions are ku ‘and’, mindyi or mandyi ‘but’, and o ‘but’. In object clauses with declarative and factive verbs, the clause is optionally introduced by the serial verb fa ‘say’; an exception to this is the volitive verb disya ‘wish’ which governs pa ‘for’.

(63)   Zwan   fa         mu   Ø i       sxa       dansyi.

         John    say   1SG Ø 3SG PROG  ill

         ‘John told me she was ill.’

(64)   Bo       xonta fá        navín  sxa         Ambô         amañá.

         2SG     tell       say      ship    PROG   Annobón  tomorrow

         ‘You tell that the ship is going to Annobón tomorrow.’

(65)   M’     tende     fa      bo     ske    sé                  odyía-ai  batelu-bo.

         1SG  hear  say 2SG  IRR  leave today-ADV proa-2SG

         ‘I heard that you leave in your proa today.’

(66)   Bo     manda    Ø      e        ba   kumpla.

         2SG  command  Ø       3SG  go   buy

         ‘You send him to buy (something).’

(67)   M’     sxa      disya         pa         mundu       da  mu   [...]

         1SG  PROG          wish    comp     world         give    1SG […]

         ‘I wish that the world will permit me [...]’

Adverbial clauses are headed by e.g. desyi ‘when’, pake ‘because’, pa ‘so that’, etc.

Relative clauses are postnominal and have the same word order as the main clause. The clause may be introduced by the demonstrative -syi at the head, the complement ku, by both of these, or by Ø.

(68)   Xadyi     Ø      no        xata-e         sa        xa          tudyia.

         house    Ø      1PL     live-ADV   be        thing     old    

         ‘The house that we live in is very old.’

(69)   Nova-syi     ku     a          da-no-e                bi         sa   wa       nova  gav(u).

         news-DEM  rel      INDF  give-1PL-ADV   ANT   be   ART   news good

         ‘The news he gave us was fine.’

9. Other

Reduplication in Fa d’ Ambô is used in adjectives and verbs to indicate intensification; in nouns, pronouns, and numerals it refers to a closed set of members of a group, e.g. féféu ‘ugly’, fa(la) ‘talk’ > fafál(a) ‘chatter’, ye ‘island’, yeye ‘group of islands’, nono ‘us (nobody else)’, dodos ‘both’.