This book argues that the state in Cabo Verde is illegible since its operations, procedures, and processes are carried out through Portuguese, a language that most of the people do not understand. Consequently, the illegible state produces grave political consequences in overall political participation and the quality of democracy.

Deriving from the data gathered in Praia, Cape Verde, through a combination of archival research, informed direct and focus groups interviews, during the summers of 2010 and 2011, the author argues that diglossic language policy limits the quality of democracy by way of lower classes' diminished surveillartory and initiatory political participation.

In the last thirty years, there has been a shift in the Cabo Verdean community in the ways it perceives itself ethnically and racially, in the creation of opportunities for socio-economic mobility, and in the pursuit of new migratory patterns within the United States to take advantage of these opportunities. Existing scholarship on the historical and contemporary experiences of Cabo Verdeans in the US has been hyper-focused on racial and ethnic identities, neglecting the space for Cabo Verdeans to share their stories, which makes this collection unique. Cabo Verdeans in the United States: Twenty-First Century Critical Perspectives edited by Terza A. Silva Lima-Neves centers Cabo Verdean stories as told by Cabo Verdeans to explore community building and challenges in the twenty-first century. The contributors examine questions of solidarity, loss of innocence, and what it means to live authentically and exist intentionally in safe spaces. They offer critical reflections on traditional cultural gender norms, and they discuss the intersections of cultural stigmas, mental and physical health, and access to care. Using interviews and personal experiences, the contributors challenge existing Cabo Verdean scholars to see the value in documenting their experiences and contributions in the United States.

Cape Verde Political Environment and Governance. Creole Language insight and Symbolism. Understand the Creole inside out, and its environment. Faced with a lack of natural resources Cape Verde has made good governance one of its most marketable products. Running parallel to the institutionalization of democratic politics there has been an overhaul and growing sophistication in public administration, though certain weaknesses persist. This report argues that it is reform and improvement in this area in particular that has enabled this small island state to punch above its weight and achieve remarkable social, economic and political results. But will the successful formula of the past decade prove sufficient for the future? Poverty and unemployment have by no means been conquered. Much of the economic growth has been based in the tourist sector and the government is well aware of the dangers of overreliance on a single industry

The Dialogic Nation of Cape Verde: Slavery, Language, and Ideology is an ethnographic study of language use and ideology in Cape Verde, from its early settlement as a center for slave trade, to the postcolonial present. The study is methodologically rich and innovative in that it weaves together historical, linguistic, and ethnographic data from different eras with sketches of contemporary life—a homicide trial, a scholarly meeting, a competition for a new national flag, a heterodox Catholic mass, an analysis of love letters, a priest’s sermon, and a death in the neighborhood. In all these different contexts, Márcia Rego focuses on the role of Kriolu (the Cape Verdean Creole) and its relation to Portuguese—that is, on the way people live through speaking. The Dialogic Nation of Cape Verde shows how, through the dialogic give-and-take of the two languages, Cape Verdeans wrestle with deep-seated colonial hierarchies, invent and rehearse new traditions, and articulate their identity as a sovereign, creole nation.

This book offers an in-depth treatment of a variety of morpho-syntactic issues in Cape Verdean Creole (CVC) both from a descriptive and theoretical perspective. The investigated topics include the determiner system, Tense, Mood, Aspect markers and pronominal paradigms. The study of TMA markers reveals morpho-syntactic configurations with interesting ramifications for syntactic theory and parametric variation. This book targets creolists, theoretical linguists, and the Cape Verdean community. Given the diversified targeted audience, the descriptive chapters are purposefully kept separate from their theoretical counterparts, presenting issues that are later revisited in the Minimalist framework. The data used in this study are primarily drawn from 83 transcribed interviews from a pool of 187 speakers. The interviews were collected during fieldwork conducted in 1997, 2000 and 2001 in the Cape Verdean Sotavento (leeward) islands representing the more basilectal varieties of the creole. As all natural languages, CVC displays syntactic similarities and differences with other creoles and noncreoles. Hence, in the spirit of comparative syntax, this volume compares CVC to other creoles like Guinea-Bissau Creole and to noncreoles like Portuguese, French, Icelandic and Italian dialects.