Two Boston-based educators are leading the charge to standardize the Cape Verdean Kriolu by authoring a dictionary that they hope can be used to teach the language more broadly.
Manuel Da Luz Goncalves of Roxbury and Djofa Tavares of Dorchester recently published their second edition of a guide meant to help English speakers learn Cape Verde’s native tongue. They say it’s an improvement over their first effort, published in 2015, that had as a goal helping Kriolu speakers learn English.
The latest volume, which they promoted during a recent event at Café Bleu on Dudley Street in Uphams Corner, includes more than 40,000 words defined and translated.
“The first edition was more difficult because we started from nothing, even though this new edition is no less important,” Da Luz explained. “The first one I had to go to Cabo Verde many times to look at what was written. The music was a good guide, and oral traditions, too. I read more than 200 books on the story of Haitian Kreyol and Cape Verdean Kriolu.
“I also worked for the Peace Corps at one time in Cabo Verde and they tried to teach the language. They had a small glossary that I took advantage of, and I used it as a source also…The new version is a great help in continuing what I have been doing.”
The effort has been a decades-long labor of love for the 76-year-old Da Luz, who worked as a guidance counselor at Madison Park Technical Vocational High School. While specializing in bi-lingual education, he found that there were no Kriolu materials available at the time, which made it very hard to teach the waves of students coming to Boston from Cabo Verde.
Meanwhile, the official language on the island nation remains Portuguese, although most residents speak various dialects of Kriolu – a somewhat problematic situation because the nation’s islands are so isolated that they have different dialects.
Add to that the fact, Da Luz and Tavares said, that Kriolu is taboo to speak in school and in official business in Cabo Verde because of the oppression originally instituted by colonial Portugal. The effect of that policy still carries weight with some Cape Verdean families in Dorchester.
“I was so engaged in this, and my mother asked what I was doing, and I told her I was writing a Kriolu dictionary,” Da Luz said. “Her quote was, ‘For what?’ I explained to her the need, the culture, and that I thought I could do something great for the country, and she said, ‘Son, go do it.’ It was her blessing.”
Da Luz said he patterned their project in large part on successful efforts in the 1980s in Haiti to make Kreyol the country’s official language instead of French. He attended workshops at Indiana University on Haitian Kreyol, learned the language, and traveled to Haiti a number of times.
“Haitian Kreyol is always our example,” he said. “They started fighting and look at what they are doing. We have a lot of similarities with culture, language, and music. We feel that if Haiti can do it, why not Cabo Verde? The same for Curacao and Seychelles. They have all done this with their language and we can, too.”
All of which is why, he said, their dictionary effort is particularly important not only for producing bi-lingual education materials in Boston, but also for capturing the minds of both young and older adults who once shunned Kriolu for Portuguese and now want to learn their native language.
Tavares, a Dorchester resident and full-time science teacher at the Russell Elementary School, helped Da Luz – her uncle – compile the dictionary, which she uses to teach Kriolu to children and adults. She also wrote the first English-Kriolu children’s book “Tiagu Y Vovo” in 2023.
“For us, language is the soul of our culture,” she said. “You are now seeing many Cape Verdeans come back to the language because they want to know. When I saw the first dictionary, I said, ‘Wow, I can now see the words.’ With the dictionary, I made my first trip to Cape Verde – a pilgrimage.”
Tavares pointed out that she and Da Luz’s friend Ana De Pina has started a greeting card company publishing in Kriolu cards for Mother’s Day, graduations, and birthdays because the dictionary is available.
“We’re excited because we now have this in English-to-Kriolu and we’re very interested to see what comes of that,” she said.
As for their dictionary leading to a change of language in every Cape Verdean home here and on the islands, that is a battle Da Luz continues to fight even as many – including politicians in the Cabo Verde government – reject the idea.
“It’s still the colonial understanding, including for the politicians,” he said. “I’ve spoken to them many times about this, and two presidents of Cabo Verde wrote the introduction to both of the editions of the dictionary…In theory they know Kriolu and like it and think it’s our secret language and they don’t need to promote it…So, the struggle continues.”
