Editing Netherlands Antilles (section)

== Demographics ==
{{Main|Demographics of the Netherlands Antilles}}

A large percentage of the Netherlands Antilleans descended from European colonists and African [[Slavery|slaves]] who were brought and traded there from the 17th to 19th centuries. The rest of the population originated from other Caribbean islands as well as Latin America, East Asia and elsewhere in the world. In Curaçao there was a strong Jewish element going back to the 17th century slave trade.{{citation needed|date=August 2023}}

The language [[Papiamento|Papiamentu]] was predominant on Curaçao and Bonaire (as well as the neighboring island of Aruba). This [[creole language|creole]] descended from [[Portuguese language|Portuguese]] and West African languages with a strong admixture of Dutch, plus subsequent lexical contributions from Spanish and English. An English-based creole dialect, formally known as [[Netherlands Antilles Creole]], was the native dialect of the inhabitants of Sint Eustatius, Saba and Sint Maarten.

After a decades-long debate, English and Papiamentu were made official languages alongside [[Dutch language|Dutch]] in early March 2007.<ref name=atmost>[http://www.atmost.nl/pdf/week_10_2007_klein.pdf "Antilles allow Papiamentu as official language"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303191545/http://www.atmost.nl/pdf/week_10_2007_klein.pdf |date=3 March 2016 }}, The Times Hague/Amsterdam/Rotterdam, 9 March 2007, page 2.</ref>
Legislation was produced in Dutch, but parliamentary debate was in Papiamentu or English, depending on the island. Due to a massive influx of immigrants from Spanish-speaking territories such as the [[Dominican Republic]] in the [[SSS islands]], and increased tourism from [[Venezuela]] in the [[ABC islands (Leeward Antilles)|ABC islands]], Spanish had also become increasingly used.

The majority of the population were followers of the Christian faith, with a Protestant majority in Sint Eustatius and Sint Maarten, and a Roman Catholic majority in Bonaire, Curaçao and Saba. Curaçao also hosted a sizeable group of followers of the Jewish religion, descendants of a [[Portugal|Portuguese]] group of [[Sephardic]] Jews that arrived from Amsterdam and [[Brazil]] from 1654. In 1982, there was a population of about 2,000 [[Muslims]], with an Islamic association and a [[mosque]] in the capital.<ref>{{cite book |author1=Ingvar Svanberg |author2=David Westerlund |title=Islam Outside the Arab World |date=6 December 2012 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-136-11330-7 |page=447}}</ref>

Most Netherlands Antilleans were [[Dutch nationality law|Dutch citizens]] and this status permitted and encouraged the young and university-educated to emigrate to the Netherlands. This exodus was considered to be to the islands' detriment, as it created a [[brain drain]]. On the other hand, immigrants from the [[Dominican Republic]], [[Haiti]], the [[Anglophone Caribbean]] and [[Colombia]] had increased their presence on these islands in later years.