Marco Schaumloeffel -

Invited Keynote Panelist: The Future of Portuguese, Brazilian, and Lusophone Studies at Canadian Universities, and in Communities

Keynote Panel: The Future of Portuguese, Brazilian, and Lusophone Studies at Canadian Universities, and in Communities
Panelists: Maria Joao Maciel Jorge and Marco Schaumloeffel
Moderator: Carlos Teixeira

International LSA Conference 2026: Voices and Visions: Lusophone Communities in the Global Landscape, May 14-16, 2026, University of British Columbia, Okanagan Campus, Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada

The featured keynote panel contemplated the current state and future of Portuguese, Brazilian, and Lusophone Studies at Canadian
universities. The panel explored Lusophone Studies, building programs, successes, and challenges. The future of speaking Portuguese in Canada, intergeneration retention of Portuguese, ethnic media, and issues related to Canadian multiculturalism were also be examined. Finally, the direction of interdisciplinary Lusophone studies was considered through the lens of research in contemporary, historical, colonial, and post-colonial Canadian Lusophone lived experiences. This interactive keynote panel encouraged reflections from those in Canadian Lusophone communities to think about these issues, comment, and ask questions.

Links to the event:

UBC-O Event Page

Schedule

LSA page on the event

“That Hair” by Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida – Portugal, the EU Book Club of Vancouver

On Nov 1, 2025, I presented and moderated the discussions on the book That Hair by Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida at the EU Book Club. The event was organized by the Consulate General of Portugal in Vancouver and EUNIC Canada-Vancouver, and hosted by the Alliance Française. November 2025 was dedicated to a book from Portugal, and the discussions were lively and profound about this significant novel by Pereira de Almeida, also analysing a few aspects of Portuguese literature and culture.

https://www.alliancefrancaise.ca/community/event-rsvp/?event_id=1025

Educational Artificial Intelligence: Transdisciplinarity, sustainability and interinstitutionality

Participation in the roundtable “Educational Artificial Intelligence: Transdisciplinarity, sustainability and interinstitutionality”/ “Inteligencia artificial educativa: transdisciplinariedad, sostenibilidad e interinstitucionalidad”, part of the International Meeting Roundtable -Discussions Educational Artificial Intelligence transdisciplinarity, organised by the Universidad de Alicante/Universitat d’Alacant (Spain)

6 May 2025.

My participation starts at 6h 55min:

Presentation: Black History Month Special Edition Tertulia at the Vancouver Latin America Cultural Centre

Black History Month Special Edition Tertulia with Marco Schaumloeffel “Tabom, the community of the Afro-Brazilian returnees in Ghana”.

Website: https://vlacc.ca/events/black-history-month-special-edition-tertulia-with-marco-schaumloeffel-tabom-the-community-of-the-afro-brazilian-returnees-in-ghana/

Join us to this special edition Tertulia celebrating the Black History Month with UBC’s professor Marco Schaumloeffel on the Tabom people’s return to Ghana on Thursday, February 29, at 6:30 pm at the Britannia Community Centre Services (Conference Room).

Discover the rich history of this unique community on a exploration of their ties to Brazil and integration into Ghana today.

The Tabom returned to Ghana from Bahia between 1829 – 1836 and are a culturally fascinating case of reverse diaspora. This presentation and conversation will be about their history, their links to Brazil and how these Brazilians, as they call themselves, are organised and live today integrated into the Ga people in Ghana.

Date: Thursday, February 29
Time: 6:30 – 8:00 pm
Location: Conference Room (Britannia Community Services Centre) 1661 Napier St, Vancouver, BC V5L 4X4

This is a FREE event, but registrations are required. Register

The well-known and recently deceased Africanist, diplomat and member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters Alberto Costa e Silva referred the following way to one of the presenter’s publications related to the Tabom: “This book seems to be small, but has many doors, as if it were a mansion. They lead to several and different sceneries and let us see, first, in tailcoat and top-hat, and later wrapped in a beautiful kenté cloth, the human beings who filled them and whose stories the Tabom of today repeat by heart. If in its pages we learnt a lot about the Tabom People, thanks to the accuracy and the intelligence with which Marco A. Schaumloeffel listened and read, they demand from us, that we learn more.”

Short bio

Marco A. Schaumloeffel holds a Master;s degree in Linguistics from the Universidade Federal do Paraná, Brazil, and a PhD in Lingustics from the University of the West Indies, where he studied the creole languages of the Caribbean. He is an Associate Lecturer at the University of British Columbia. Previously, he was lecturer for Portuguese and German at the Barbados Community, Lecturer of Brazilian Studies at the University of the West Indies in Barbados, and he worked at the University of Ghana, teaching Portuguese and Brazilian Culture.

He is the author of the book Tabom – The Afro-Brazilian Community of Ghana about the history of the Afro-Brazilians who returned to Africa after abolition. In addition, he published several articles and chapters of books dealing with Linguistics, Creole languages, especially about Papiamentu and Papiá Kristang, German dialectology in Brazil, Hunsrückisch, teaching foreign languages and Afro-Brazilians returnees to West Africa.

Historical Aspects of Forced and Free Black Migrations in the ABC Islands

Chapter in Book

Title of chapter: Historical Aspects of Forced and Free Black Migrations in the ABC Islands

Book: Many Rivers to Cross: Black Migrations in Brazil and the Caribbean. Elaine P. Rocha (Ed.). Vernon Press, 2024.

Link: https://vernonpress.com/book/1847

In the chapter Historical Aspects of Forced and Free Black Migrations in the ABC Islands, Marco Aurelio Schaumloeffel examines the ABC islands – Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao – located in the southern region of the Caribbean archipelago. These
slands, although they “functioned as an entrepôt for enslaved Africans, and the
slave traders operated there as “middlemen” in the lucrative business of human
trafficking”, were not drawn into the plantation economy. Schaumloeffel starts
with a discussion about the importation of African people from various regions
during the period in which the Dutch were heavily involved in slave trading,
moving onto the arrival of Portuguese-Brazilian Sephardic Jews and their
enslaved workers, which had a great impact in the islands. After the abolition
of slavery, black people started to move from the islands to the continent, but
the migrations increased during the twentieth century when workers moved
from the ABC islands to parts of the British and Spanish Caribbean. He shows
that movement in the region did not take place in only one direction, as people
from other islands moved to Curaçao and Aruba, attracted by economic opportunities after oil was found in the region. This intra-Caribbean migration
had a huge impact on the cultural identity of the region.

Papiamentu and the Brazilian connection established through the Sephardic Jews

Papiamentu and the Brazilian connection established through the Sephardic Jews

Marco Aurelio Schaumloeffel
Presentation at the 22nd Biennial Conference of the The Society for Caribbean Linguistics (SCL)
Heredia/Limón, Costa Rica 5th-12th August 2018
Conference Programme
Conference website

Abstract

Papiamentu and the Brazilian connection established through the Sephardic Jews

A direct historical connection between Curaçao and Brazil was established due to the resettlement of Sephardic Jews, their assistants, and their free and enslaved African servants from Dutch Brazil to the Caribbean after the Dutch were expelled by the Portuguese from the Northeast of Brazil. Portuguese-speaking Jews from Brazil began to arrive in Curaçao in 1659. This period coincides with the period between 1634 and 1677, considered crucial for the formation of Papiamentu (Jacobs, The Upper Guinea origins of Papiamentu Linguistic and historical evidence 353). Portuguese was one of the languages spoken by the Sephardi in Curaçao. From the beginning, the Jewish congregation in Curaçao even used Portuguese for their religious services; they only changed to Spanish in the nineteenth century (Holm, An Introduction to Pidgins and Creoles 78). The historical facts involving the dislocation of people from Pernambuco, Brazil to Curaçao naturally lead to the assumption of a possible influence of these Portuguese-speaking Sephardic Jews and their Afro-Brazilian servants in the formation of Papiamentu (PA). Although the current body of research in PA completely discards the hypothesis of a Brazilian origin of Papiamentu, as postulated in 1987 by Goodman (The Portuguese element in the American Creoles), the intention of this presentation is to show that there are effective links between these two areas and that there probably was some secondary degree of influence from Brazilian Portuguese during the formation process of PA. Even if they existed, it certainly would be difficult to prove that some of the PA features present in the deeper layers of the language could be specifically attributed to an influence from Brazilian Portuguese or the Portuguese spoken by the Sephardi, as it probably would be difficult to clearly set them apart from the features incorporated into PA that are also present in other Portuguese variants and in West African Portuguese-based creoles. However, specific lexical items that will be discussed in this presentation show that their transfer to PA may have happened because of the dislocation of Sephardic Jews and their servants from Brazil to Curaçao. Traces of at least one of those lexical items can also be found in French Guiana and in Suriname, the final destination for some of those expelled from Brazil or the temporary destination as place of passage for others that later headed to Curaçao. Some lexical items, including PA yaya ‘nanny, nursemaid’, bacoba ‘banana’ and fulabola ‘forefinger, index finger’, will be analysed to show that their presence in PA can probably be specifically attributed to the historical connection created between Brazil and Curaçao due to the forced migration of the Sephardic Jews and their servants.

The multifunctionality of Papiamentu pa and its similarities with Vernacular Brazilian Portuguese

The multifunctionality of Papiamentu pa and its similarities with Vernacular Brazilian Portuguese

Marco A. Schaumloeffel

Article published in the Journal of Portuguese and Spanish Lexically-based Creoles / Revista de Crioulos de Base Lexical Portuguesa e Espanhola 7 (2017), pp. 15-33. ISSN 1646-7000. Association of Portuguese- and Spanish-Lexified Creoles/Associação de Crioulos de Base Lexical Portuguesa e Espanhola (ACBLPE). Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa. Released in March 2018.

Link: http://www.acblpe.com/revista/volume-7-2017/the-multifunctionality-of-papiamentu-pa-and-its-similarities-with-vernacular-brazilian-portuguese

Here you can also download the pdf file.

Abstract

The Papiamentu (PA) element pa covers a broad array of functions, operating as a preposition, a mood marker and a complementiser. Lefebvre and Therrien (2007) compare the functions of PA pa to those of para in standard Portuguese (PT), noting that the 15 functions of pa they identify do not match up with the significantly fewer functions of PT para. In this study, it is argued that the functions claimed by Lefebvre and Therrien (2007) to be shared by PA pa and PT para are not without questions. Moreover, we offer a comparison between PA pa and pra in Vernacular Brazilian Portuguese (VBP), showing that these two elements share all 15 functions identified by Lefebvre and Therrien (2007). Finally, we offer an account as to why this sharp discrepancy exists between the results of the PA pa – PT para.

Keywords: Papiamentu, Vernacular Brazilian Portuguese, Multifunctionality of Papiamentu pa, Origins of Papiamentu

Questionamentos e Discussões Essenciais Acerca de um Possível Sistema de Escrita para o Hunsrückisch Brasileiro

Questionamentos e Discussões Essenciais Acerca de um Possível Sistema de Escrita para o Hunsrückisch Brasileiro

Marco Aurelio Schaumloeffel

Artigo publicado na revista Trama, v. 14, n. 31 (2018), p. 109-121, e-ISSN 1981-4674

Link para a publicação:

http://e-revista.unioeste.br/index.php/trama/article/view/17600/12408

Artigo em arquivo PDF para download

Errata: a formatação do artigo provavelmente causou uma mistura/um corte nas palavras na seguinte passagem:

“Assim, há duas formas de escrita e algumas diferenças no Papiamentu, conforme o ilustrado através dos exemplos de palavras apresentadas abaixo:
Curaçao e Bonaire: étiko, kas, piská, Papiamentu, kombinashon, lèternan, ferfdó
Aruba: etico, cas, pisca, Papiamento, combinacion, letranan, pintor
Português: ético, casa, peixe, Papiamentu(o), combinação, cartas, pintor”

Original do artigo submetido pode ser lido aqui.

RESUMO: O objetivo deste trabalho é discutir basilarmente por que e se o Hunsrückisch brasileiro, a língua falada por grande parte dos descendentes de alemães no Brasil, deve ter um sistema de escrita estabelecido. Com base nestas questões, as vantagens e desvantagens de um eventual estabelecimento de um sistema de escrita serão analisados e ponderações feitas sobre o que este sistema, no contexto da complexidade e da presença de muitas variedades, imprescindivelmente deve conter e levar em conta. Serão trazidos exemplos de dois contextos completamente diferentes, nomeadamente da Suíça e das Ilhas ABC (Aruba, Bonaire e Curaçao, no Caribe), onde são falados, respectivamente, o Alemão suíço e o Papiamentu, com o propósito de verificar como estes casos podem apontar para possíveis caminhos e soluções para estas questões. Além disso, duas propostas já existentes de sistemas de escrita para o Hunsrückisch brasileiro serão analisadas e testadas quanto a sua funcionalidade e aplicabilidade.

PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Hunsrückisch brasileiro, Alemão no Brasil, sistema de escrita, ortografia, variedades linguísticas

ABSTRACT: The objective of this article is to fundamentally discuss why and if Brazilian Hunsrückisch, the language spoken by the majority of the German descendants in Brazil, should have an established writing system. Based on these questions, the advantages and disadvantages of a prospective establishment of a writing system will be analysed and considerations will be made about what this system should necessarily contain and regard. Examples from two completely different contexts will be presented, namely from Switzerland and the ABC Islands (Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao in the Caribbean) where Swiss German and Papiamentu are respectively spoken, in order to verify how those cases can point to possible ways and solutions to these questions. Apart from that, two already existing proposals of writing systems for Brazilian Hunsrückisch will be analysed and tested for their functionality and applicability.

KEYWORDS: Brazilian Hunsrückisch, German in Brazil, writing system, orthography, linguistic varieties

Tabom: O Brasil longe do Brasil – Tabom: Brazil away from Brazil

Entrevista concedida à revista Atlântico / Interview for Atlantico Magazine

Instituto Brasil África / Brazil Africa Institute

Tabom: O Brasil longe do Brasil – Tabom: Brazil away from Brazil. Atlantico. Year 3. Number 11. July 2017. Pages 46-50. ISSN 2447-8016. Fortaleza, Brazil.

Link para todas as revistas/Link to all magazines: https://ibraf.org/atlantico-magazine/

Link para esta edição / Link to this edition: https://ibraf.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/atlantico11.pdf

Considerations on the reciprocity and reflexivity in Papiamentu

Captura de tela inteira 29072016 164536-001

Marco Aurelio Schaumloeffel
Presentation at the 21st Biennial Conference of the The Society for Caribbean Linguistics (SCL)
Kingston, Jamaica 1st-6th August 2016
Conference Programme
Conference website
References

Abstract

Considerations on the reciprocity and reflexivity in Papiamentu

The Ibero-Romance clitic pronouns were not incorporated into Papiamentu (PA). Instead, PA has today several different possibilities to form reflexives, which replaced the Ibero-Romance clitics: paña ‘cloth’, kurpa ‘body’, null reflexive, possessive + kurpa, object pronoun, object pronoun + mes < Portuguese mesmo ‘self’, and possessive pronoun + mes (cf. Muysken 1993:286). At least two other strategies of reflexivisation or quasi-reflexivisation are not discussed by Muysken: the use of kabes ‘head’ and of the reciprocal otro ‘other’. While some of those types of reflexives are a common strategy of reflexivisation in several creole languages (Muysken and Smith 1994:271-288), some of them can also be found in other Portuguese-based creoles. Therefore, this might indicate that there is a linguistic link between PA and those creoles when it comes to the realisation of this category of function words.

The aim of this presentation is to ponder on how specifically the reflexives with kurpa, possessive + kurpa, kabes, otro and mes are realised in PA and compare them to their equivalents in other Portuguese and Spanish-based creoles in order to establish if there are linguistic ties that connect PA to them when it comes to reflexivity.

Reflexives with kurpa and possessive + kurpa are also found in the Guinea Bissau and Casamance Portuguese creoles (GBC), which in turn are usually correlated with a Kwa / Bantu substrate (Jacobs 2012:130-131), but are also present in Asian creoles like Papiá Kristang (PK) and Zamboangueño (Holm 2000:225). Reflexives or quasi-reflexives can also be formed with PA kabes, which also encounters equivalents in GBC, Cape Verdean Portuguese-based creoles and PK. Another shared feature of PA with GBC and PK is the use of ‘other’ to express reciprocity, whereas a similar syntax for PA mes can also be found in the Cape Verdean creole of São Vicente, in Principense and in PK.

Interestingly, the analysis of the available data always points towards the same direction, since the current realisation of reflexivity in PA seems to be etymologically, and sometimes even through its grammatical functions, linked to other Portuguese-based creoles and to Portuguese, rather than to Spanish or Spanish-based creoles. Holm raised two possibilities for the presence of a reflexive with ‘body’ in Asian creoles, which also can be extended to the other reflexives mentioned above: that they either spread by diffusion or arose independently through the inﬂuence of other substrate languages (2000:225). Based on their similar realisation, especially in PK, the former rather seems to be the case.