Papel (Pepel, Papei), or ''Oium'' (''Moium''), is a
Bak language
The Bak languages are a group of typologically Atlantic languages of Senegal and Guinea-Bissau
Guinea-Bissau ( ; pt, Guiné-Bissau; ff, italic=no, 𞤘𞤭𞤲𞤫 𞤄𞤭𞤧𞤢𞥄𞤱𞤮, Gine-Bisaawo, script=Adlm; Mandinka: ''Gin ...
of
Guinea-Bissau
Guinea-Bissau ( ; pt, Guiné-Bissau; ff, italic=no, 𞤘𞤭𞤲𞤫 𞤄𞤭𞤧𞤢𞥄𞤱𞤮, Gine-Bisaawo, script=Adlm; Mandinka: ''Gine-Bisawo''), officially the Republic of Guinea-Bissau ( pt, República da Guiné-Bissau, links=no ), ...
.
Papel is the language spoken by the Papel people, who live in the central coastal regions of Guinea-Bissau, namely the
Biombo Region
Biombo is a region in western Guinea-Bissau, with an area of 840 km2 and its capital is Quinhámel. There has not been any local administration since the civil war of 1998-99, and all the social services are done by organs of civil society ...
where it is spoken by 136,000 Bissau-Guineans. Papel speakers are estimated to be around 140,000 in total globally.
Papel has 79,000 speakers living on
Bissau Island (called ''(b)uhlawʔ'' or ''(b)usawʔ'' in Papel). Dialects include
Biombo (Papel: ''uyomʔ'') in the southwest and
Safim
Safim is a city and sector in the Biombo Region of Guinea-Bissau. It has a population of 17,356 inhabitants as of the 2009 national census.
The sector's land area covers 174.8 km².
Safim is part of the Metropolitan Region of Bissau, a conurbat ...
(Papel: ''safli'') in the northeast.
[Wilson, William André Auquier. 2007. ''Guinea Languages of the Atlantic group: description and internal classification''. (Schriften zur Afrikanistik, 12.) Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.]
Classification
Papel is part of the Bak language family based in the Senegal/Guinea-Bissau region, thus it is linguistically similar to the Mankanya and Mandjak languages, members of the '
Papel languages' a language sub-family. Today, Papel, along with its linguistic neighbours uses Latin-based script.
References
Further reading
*
External links
*Basic Papel phrases and discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jca7e7-z9CQ
Papel languages
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