Karipúna French Creole, also known as Amapá French Creole and , is a French-based creole language spoken by the Karipúna community, which lives in the Uaçá Indian Reservation in the Brazilian state of Amapá, on the Curipi and Oyapock rivers. It is mostly French-lexified except for flora and fauna terms, with a complex mix of substratum languages—most notably the Arawakan Karipúna language.
Anonby notes that Portuguese tends to be the mother tongue for speakers under 60 in the Karipúna community, and Karipúna French Creole is the mother tongue primarily only for speakers over 60.
History
The Karipúna community includes a mix of ethnicities to such a degree that at times (such as in the early 1930s) doubt arose as to whether or not the Karipúna should be referred to as Indians. Alleyne and Ferreira explain that "today, the Karipúna people are a highly mixed group, comprising not only descendants of Amerindians, but also of Africans, Asians and Europeans, and mixtures thereof."
John Ladhams offers what is probably the best description of the migration and formation of the current-day Karipúna population. Members of the Arawak, Tupí, and Carib linguistic trunks were in contact with European explorers since the 16th century, and around 1830 to the 1840s, due to the Cabanagem Revolt, a group of Amerindians from the Pará region moved to modern-day Amapá (which was, at the time, claimed by French Guiana) and joined with the present ethnic groups, thus coming into contact with French or Guyanais speakers. Moving between French Guiana and Brazil in hotly contested territory from the Ounary river, to the Oyapock river, and finally towards the Curipi river where the Karipúna now live, these groups were joined by "members of the Palikúr and Galibí tribes, as well as Guianan Creoles, Arabs, Chinese, Europeans, and Brazilians" and eventually settled in the Uaçá area. "These were ‘displaced Brazilians … called Karipúnas’." Furthermore in 1854, due to a gold rush in Approuague, many "coolies, Blacks, Chinese, Martinicans and French adventurers" moved to the Oyapock and Uaçá rivers, where the Karipúna inhabited, further contributing to the broad ethnic mix.
Ladhams explains the adoption of a French creole by the group as a result of the broad ethnic backgrounds of the Karipúna. "Since at least the 1840s," the Karipúna community was "a highly disparate group ... and that there would have been an immediate need for a medium for inter-ethnic communication. A prime candidate for this would have been Guyanais," as it was already used by parts of the Amerindian members and most of the non-Amerindian members of the Karipúna community.
In December 1900, the Amapá region was ceded to Brazil from France, putting the Karipúna community in Brazilian territory, and in the 1920s, "Brazilian authorities deemed it necessary to implement projects for occupying the formerly contested territory whose ‘frenchified’ populations were seen as a threat to the country's territorial integrity." As a result the Oiapoque Colonization Commission was created in 1920. Later in 1927, an inspection commission commanded by the Ministry of War began to patrol the Oiapoque and report on the groups living there. The reports were the first to use the term of "Karipúna" for the inhabitants of the Cupiri River, and has been the label employed since. The intent of the Ministry of War was to "incorporate the Indians into society," and from 1934–37, and then from 1945 onwards, non-indigenous teachers were recruited by the government to teach in Karipúna villages. This education "played a fundamental role in formulating the contemporary identity of these groups, in the propagation of the use of Portuguese and in the configuration of the villages."
The 1970s "were marked by greater political participation of the Uaçá leaders," including the Karipúna amongst the other three groups in the Uaçá reserve, "who began to act in more organized fashion." Particularly, they opposed the installation of the proposed route for the BR-156 highway, and this struggle resulted in further pressure to fight for the demarcation of their land. A new route of the highway was eventually accepted with "the hiring of indigenous heads to assist in the inspection of the borders of the indigenous territory."