crioulo

Forms

crioulo m (plural crioulos)^[1] Houaiss dates the spelling crjoulo to about 1596 and crioulo to about 1623.^[2] Feijó (1734) gives the pronunciation crîoilo.^[3]

Etymology

It is from Portuguese cria (“offspring; slave raised in the household”), itself a back-formation from criar (“to raise, breed”), from Latin creō (“to create, beget”), with an ending whose origin is disputed.^[2][4][5] Cunha calls the ending difficult to explain.^[4] Corominas, in the short dictionary, sees in it a Portuguese diminutive suffix -oulo, and Houaiss and Aurélio connect it with Latin -olus.^[5][2][6] In the DCECH Corominas favours instead the view of Cornu, Nobiling and Leite de Vasconcelos that the word is an altered criadouro (“apt to grow up well”), from Latin creātūrus, the future participle of the Latin verb, changed in the speech of enslaved Africans: Nascentes gives the series *criadoiro > *criaoiro > crioilo.^[7][8] Wiktionary calls the origin uncertain.^[1]

Everyone agrees that the word arose in Portuguese and spread through Spanish criollo, which Corominas calls an adaptation of the Portuguese word.^[7][5][2] Figueiredo (1899) took the opposite view, deriving the Portuguese word from the Spanish one.^[9] From Spanish it passed into Middle French crollo, recorded in 1598, and criollo (1643), and became French créole, the source of the English word creole.^[2][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest Portuguese record, of about 1596, uses the word for a slave born in the master's household.^[2] Corominas quotes Frei Luís de Sousa (1632), who says that in the Congo a priest was called crioulo because he was of mixed descent, and a Latin text written in Brazil about 1643, which explains that a child born there of two Black parents is called Criolo.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Corominas argues that the word first named the children of enslaved Africans born in Brazil, as against those brought from Africa, and that criollo then took in Spanish America the sense of a person of European parents born in the colonies.^[7][5] A Spanish author of 1602 explains that the Africans invented the name for those born in the Indies, and that the Spaniards adopted it for their own people born there.^[7] In the Portuguese of India it meant an adopted child or a servant brought up in the house from infancy, recorded in 1687.^[7][2]

In Portugal the sense “not bought, born and raised at home” was applied to animals: Bluteau (1712) explains gallinha crioula as a hen hatched and raised at home, and Morais (1789) adds trout from one's own pond.^[7][11] Vieira (1873) gives both the white person born in the colonies and the Black person born there, as opposed to one brought by the slave trade.^[12] Regional uses followed: in the Minho a child in arms, on the Tagus a migratory bird that stays the winter.^[7][2][13]

In Brazil the word came to mean any Black person, a use Nascentes describes as a euphemism and which modern dictionaries mark as potentially offensive; in the south it means anything native to the region, notably the Crioulo horse, and a cigarette of rolled tobacco in a corn husk is a crioulo.^{[8][13][14][2]} The linguistic sense, a language formed from the contact of a European language with others and become a community's mother tongue, is recorded in French in 1688, for a Portuguese spoken in Senegal; in Portuguese the word names especially the language of Cape Verde, Kabuverdianu kriolu in that language.^[2][15][1]

Timeline

• 1590 – Spanish criollo in the writings of P. J. de Acosta.^[7][5]
• c. 1596 – first Portuguese record, spelt crjoulo.^[2]
• 1598 – French crollo.^[2]
• c. 1623 – the spelling crioulo.^[2]
• 1632 – Frei Luís de Sousa uses the word of a priest of mixed descent in the Congo.^[7]
• 1642 – Crioulo in a private letter.^[16]
• 1687 – a chronicle of Ceylon uses the word for a cleric raised in a priest's house.^[7]
• 1688 – French langue créole for a language spoken in Senegal.^[2]
• 1712 – Bluteau explains gallinha crioula as a home-raised hen.^[7]
• 1737 – English creole.^[2]
• 1755 – Folqman translates crioulo (a slave) by Latin verna.^[17]
• 1789 – Morais defines it as the slave born in the master's house.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. (historical) A slave born in the master's household.^[2][11][1]
2. (historical) A Black person born in the Americas, especially in Brazil, as opposed to one brought from Africa.^[2][15][1]
3. A person of European descent born in a former colony, especially in Spanish America; a Creole.^[2][15][18]
4. (Brazil, often offensive) A Black person.^[2][13][1]
5. (linguistics) A creole, a language formed from the contact of a European language with native or imported languages and become the mother tongue of a community.^[2][15]
6. The Portuguese-based creole of Cape Verde, Kabuverdianu.^[15][18][1]
7. (Brazil) A cigarette of rolled tobacco wrapped in a corn husk.^[2][14]
8. (regional, Minho) A child in arms.^[2][15]
9. (India) An adopted child or a servant raised in a house from infancy.^[2][7]

Adjective

1. Born or produced in the country, not imported; of an animal, born on one's own property; of a hen, of no definite breed.^[2][6]
2. (Brazil) Native to a given place or region;^[2][14][1] (Rio Grande do Sul) of the Crioulo breed of horse.^[2][14][1]
3. (regional, Ribatejo) Of a migratory bird: staying in the country.^[2][13]
4. (linguistics) Relating to a creole language, or to the creole of Cape Verde.^[15][18]

Word family

• crioulizar

Related words

• cria
• criar
• criadouro
• Spanish criollo
• French créole
• Kabuverdianu kriolu

Usage notes

As a word for a Black person, crioulo is marked by modern Brazilian dictionaries as old or as potentially prejudiced, depending on who uses it and how.^[13][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. crioulo
3. ^ Feijó, João de Morais Madureira (1734), Orthographia, ou Arte de escrever, e pronunciar com acerto a lingua portugueza, Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. crioulo
4. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. criar
5. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. criollo
6. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. crioulo
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 243
8. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. crioulo
9. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 362
10. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com, p. s.v. creole
11. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 496
12. ^ Vieira, Frei Domingos (1871–1874), Grande Diccionario Portuguez ou Thesouro da lingua portugueza, 5 vols., Porto: Ernesto Chardron e Bartholomeu H. de Moraes, p. 2, 641
13. ^ a b c d e Aulete, Francisco Júlio Caldas, Dicionário contemporâneo da língua portuguesa (1st ed. 1881), online as Aulete Digital, Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, https://aulete.com.br, p. s.v. crioulo
14. ^ a b c d Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. 1
15. ^ a b c d e f g Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, revised online edition (2023–) of the Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa Contemporânea (2001), https://dicionario.acad-ciencias.pt, p. s.v. crioulo
16. ^ CLUL (ed.) (2014), P.S. Post Scriptum: Arquivo Digital de Escrita Quotidiana em Portugal e Espanha na Época Moderna, Lisboa: Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, http://ps.clul.ul.pt, p. s.v. crioulo
17. ^ Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. crioulo
18. ^ a b c Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. crioulo