Portuguese-based creole languages used to distinguish locally born black people of African descent from those who had been brought from Africa as slaves. In time, however, this generic sense was lost, and the word "crioulo" or its derivatives (like "Creole" and its equivalents in other languages) became the name of several specific Upper Guinean communities and their languages: the Guinean people and their Kriol language, Cape Verdean people and their Kriolu language, all of which still today have very vigorous use, suppressing the importance of official standard Portuguese. The oldest Portuguese-based creole are the so-called "crioulos" of Upper Guinea, born around the Portuguese
Medieval etymology mordens mortem incurrit" ('from the bite of the first man, who, biting the apple of the forbidden tree, incurs death'). The etymology was thus crafted to teach a spiritual truth. The fact that the same author knew other, alternative and logically incompatible etymologies for the same word ("mors" comes also from "amarus", 'bitter', or from the name of the god of war Mars) did not devalue the lesson, since it was the spiritual meaning and not the philological accuracy which stood in the foreground. As yet there is still no satisfactory history of Christian etymology, but a very useful discussion