Portuguese language in Africa the various Portuguese creoles that have developed there. These creole languages co-exist with Portuguese and, in the countries where they are spoken, form a continuum with the lexifying language. In Cape Verde, refers to a variety of Cape Verdean Creole which takes on various features of Portuguese and is a result of processes of decreolization in the archipelago. In São Tome e Principe, Santomense Portuguese is a variety of Portuguese strongly influenced by Forro in syntax and vocabulary. Since the lexicons of those languages are derived from Portuguese, even creole-speakers who do not speak Portuguese have a passive knowledge of
Medieval etymology such speculations have sometimes proved correct in the light of modern scholarship, but generally they were based on superficial similarities. Like classical etymology, Medieval Christian etymology drew tenuous connections between superficially similar words, but exegetical etymology was radically new in what it then did with the connections. The purpose of etymology was to elucidate the spiritual background to a concept, drawing out aspects of semantics in a similar manner to the symbolic interpretation of the natural world. An example: Hugh of St Victor derived the Latin word "mors" ('death') from "morsus" ('bite'): "a morsu primi hominis qui vetitae arboris pomum