Sri Lanka Indo-Portuguese language
Encyclopedia
Sri Lanka Indo-Portuguese,Ceylonese Portuguese Creole or Sri Lankan Portuguese Creole (SLPC) is a language spoken in Sri Lanka
. While the predominant languages of the island are Sinhala and Tamil
, the interaction of the Portuguese
and the Sri Lankans led to the evolution of a new language, Sri Lanka Portuguese Creole (SLPC), which flourished as a lingua franca
on the island for over 350 years (16th to mid 19th centuries). SLPC continues to be spoken by an unknown, extremely small population. All speakers of SLPC are members of the Burgher
community: descendents of the Portuguese and Dutch who originally founded families in Sri Lanka. Europeans, Eurasia
ns, and Burghers
account for 0.2% of the Sri Lankan population. Though only a small group of people actually continue to speak SLPC, the Portuguese cultural traditions are still in wide practice by the mainstream Sri Lankans who are neither of Portuguese descent nor Roman Catholics. SLPC is associated with the Sri Lanka Kaffir people
, an ethnic minority group. SLPC has been considered the most important creole dialect in Asia
because of its vitality and the influence of its vocabulary on the Sinhalese language. Lexical borrowing from Portuguese can be observed in many areas of the Sinhalese language. Portuguese influence has been so deeply absorbed into daily Sri Lankan life and behavior that these traditions will likely continue into perpetuity
and Malacca
), sent an expedition from Goa
to establish a trading post at Colombo
. They introduced Christianity
to the island, and granted special favors to those who converted. Using the unstable political situation on the island to their advantage, the Portuguese soon gained the position of guardians of the nominal monarch of southern Sri Lanka. In 1557, Dharmapala
, who was king at Kotte
, near Colombo
, and had suzerainty
over Kandy
and Jaffna
(the other two kingdoms) was baptized Dom João Dharmapala breaking a 1,850 year-old tradition as a Christian King sat on the Sinhalese throne. Several Sri Lankan aristocrats and others followed the King and converted. In 1597, Dharmapala, the last king of the Kotte, died childless, and willed his realm to Philip I
, king of Portugal. In 1617, with the annexation of Jaffna, Portuguese
authority extended over the entire lowland zone. Catholicism continued to spread, but the Portuguese did not train an indigenous clergy, so it was simply a microcosm of the church in Portugal.
The Dutch
were in contact with the Kandyan court as early as 1602, but it wasn’t until 1632 that the Kandyan monarch, Raja Sinha II, invited Dutch cooperation in expelling the Portuguese from the island. A long period of conflict ensued, including Dutch takeover of Batticaloa
in 1638, and ending with the fall of Mannar
and Jaffna
in 1658. When Raja Sinha II realized that the Dutch were not about to deliver their new conquests to him, the alliance quickly dissolved into enmity. The Dutch East India Company
was primarily interested in commercial profits and resisted engaging in costly military operations against Kandy
. During the Dutch reign, 1761–1766, was the only period of outright war. The Dutch also maltreated the Catholics and forced conversions to the Calvinist faith, the Catholic Church fell to its foundations as Catholic marriages, practice of the faith, and priests were forbidden by the Dutch. Catholics met secretly at each other’s homes to practice their faith. At this time, the Catholic Church may have disappeared completely in Sri Lanka had it not been for the work of Goan priests who came to the island to save Catholicism.
before coming to Sri Lanka in 1517. By that time a distinct pidgin
of Portuguese had probably begun to develop, and this was used as the basis for communication with the new territory’s inhabitants. There is very little documented evidence of the linguistic situation at the time, however, it is clear that by the early 17th Century a Portuguese-based pidgin was in use in the Portuguese controlled littoral, and was not unknown in the kingdom of Kandy because of its frequent dealings with outsiders. Also, a creole community had been established consisting of two groups or creole speakers: the Topazes (Tupasses, mestiços, etc.), ‘dark skinned or half-cast people claiming Portuguese descent, and Christian profession, and Kaffirs (Caffres, etc.), or East Africans.
The Topazes were children of local or half-caste mothers and Portuguese or half-caste fathers. They would have been exposed to pidgin/creole Portuguese at home. They identified with Portuguese, a natural occurrence, considering that the Portuguese were at the apex of the social order, though they probably had local family ties as well. The Portuguese brought black slaves to Sri Lanka from East Africa
, Kaffirs. These people would have spoken pidgin Portuguese, and it is likely that many were native creole speakers, but maybe not of the Sri Lanka variety. Because they mainly served as domestic servants, they would have introduced the very young children of Casados (married men who had come with their Portuguese wives as settlers to Sri Lanka) to the pidgin/creole. There may have also been children of chance unions of Portuguese or Topazes with Kaffirs, but it is unclear which group they would have belonged to.
community, in the Eastern towns of Batticaloa
(Koolavaddy, Mamangam, Uppodai, Dutch Bar, Akkaraipattu
) and Trincomalee
(Palayuttu). But there are also speakers among the Kaffir
s, descendant of African slaves, in the Northwestern province
, in Puttalam
(Mannar
). In the village of Wahakotte near Galewala, in central Sri Lanka, there is a small community of Catholic
s with partial Portuguese ancestry, where the language was spoken until two generations ago.
Batticaloa
is a medium-sized coastal town in the Eastern Province that has always been an isolated outpost, and has been able to retain many ancient habits. This isolation has been a factor in the preservation of SLPC, but very little information exists about the town’s history. Tamil speakers are the overwhelming majority, but there is also a concentrated community of SLPC speaking Burghers. In the early part of the century most Burghers lived close to the center of the town, but more recently, many have moved to outlying areas. All of the Burghers in Batticaloa speak Tamil, many of them better than they do SLPC, and some also speak Sinhala and/or English. The group has no contact with any other creole speakers on the island, and the creole has for a long time been losing ground to Tamil. Currently, decreasing competence can be observed over successive generations: the younger a Burgher, the less likely they are to know the creole, and if they can speak it, their speech exhibits more Tamil features than that of their parents. Members of the burgher community are in constant interaction with Tamil speakers as they live, work, play, study, and worship together. Burgher children learn Tamil at the same time that they learn the creole. It is difficult to determine how many of Batticaloa’s Burghers speak SLPC, but most probably understand it, though in many homes Tamil has become the predominant language.
The language is facing extinction
, as it is now only used at home and few are able to speak it well. Throughout Sri Lanka many SLPC speakers have emigrated to other countries such as Australia
, New Zealand
, Canada
, USA and Europe
. There are still 100 Burgher families in Batticaloa and Trincomalee and 80 Kaffir families in Puttalam that speak the language. SLPC was very prominent in the past, continuing to be in use despite predictions that it would die out, but current prospects for its survival are equally as bleak as in the past.
An early sample of the language was collected by Hugh Nevill
, a British
civil servant stationed in Sri Lanka in the late 19th century. Among his large collection of oriental manuscripts is the Sri Lanka Portuguese Creole Manuscript
, containing over a thousand verses and a long text in prose.
Vowels
Standard Portuguese (SP) has rich vowel phonology with seven to nine oral vowels (depending on which dialect
), five nasal vowels, ten oral diphthongs and five nasal diphthongs. While SLPC has retained the same oral vowels found in Standard Continental Portuguese, it does not make the distinction between nasalized and non-nasalized vowels. While the vowels are derived from Portuguese, the vowel features appear more similar to Tamil, since in both Tamil and the Creole vowels are distinguished by length.
Word internal sequences of two vowels do not occur in SLPC, therefore the creole does not appear to have diphthongs as there are in SP. Again, vowel lengthening seems to take place instead of diphthongization.
Chart A shows a vowel chart for SP, where nasality is distinguished from oral vowels, and a vowel chart for SLPC, where vowel length is a distinctive feature. Chart (B) shows both long vowels (such as the word for ‘wax’, [ˈseːɾə], from BrP ‘cerar’) and short vowels (such as in the word for ‘want’, [ˈkeɾə], from BrP ‘querer’).
Besides the distinction between vowel length and vowel nasality, the place of stress on vowels distinguishes SP and SLPC. Both Batticaloan Tamil and the SLPC have entirely predictable stress² patterns whereas SP does not. While stress is predictable, it is not simply a surface phenomenon, so it must be represented lexically.
A few rules about stress in SLPC:
1. Either short or long vowels can take on stress, but long vowels always carry stress.
2. A word can contain only one phonetically long vowel, but numerous unstressed short vowels.
3. Short vowels can be stressed only when found in initial syllables.
4. Stress falls on the last underlying long vowel of a word, or on the first vowel of a word having no long vowel.
Stress is important as it relates to the phonological changes that occur in the Creole. For instance, there is [vowel reduction] by way of prominence reduction of unstressed vowels. This means that relatively long vowels in an unstressed position are replaced by shorter vowels of a similar quality.⁶ :So, as a general rule, low and mid-vowels are contrastive under stress in SLPC, but neutralized and given the features of a mid-vowel when not stressed. Another way to say this is that through a pattern of neutralization, high [sonority] vowels are eliminated in SLPC. The pattern of vowel reduction is shown in Table (1) below:
Other phonological processes vowels of SLPC demonstrate are epenthesis
and elision
. Neither is a very common phenomena, however, so they will only be dealt with briefly. The insertion of epenthetic /u/ occurs to prevent the formation of certain consonant clusters that are atypical. One example of this is seen when the verb ‘to judge’ or [julˈɡa], is nominalized. This is done by the suffix /-dor/, which requires an epenthetic /u/ when added to the stem /julɡ-/, because the potentially resulting consonant cluster of /lɡd/ does not regularly occur in the language. Therefore the combination of the stem, the epenthetic /u/ and the suffix /-dor/ yields the form [julɡuˈdor], where the /u/ is inserted in-between the /lɡ/ and the /d/.
Since word medial sequences of two or more vowels do not occur in Sri Lanka, as mentioned earlier, a process of vowel elision and glide epenthesis can co-occur to prevent vowels from coming together. Firstly, when there exists a possible combination of two vowels as result of some sort of word construction a glide separates them. Secondly, as a result of this the first vowel of the two may be reduced or elided.
A) Standard Portuguese
B)Sri Lanka Portuguese Creole
Consonants
SLPC uses several manners of consonant articulation which are not found in SP. Since this Creole do does express influence from Batticaloa Tamil, English, and Dutch (particularly via loan words.) It is difficult to determine where some of these segments have been loaned from. For instance, the closed front rounded vowel /y/ is considered a glide in SLPC and does not behave this way in Tamil or Portuguese. It seems to have evolved for the high front vowel /i/
As mentioned earlier, SLPC seems to have an affinity for gemination of vowels resulting in a distinction between short and long vowels. As for consonants, there is also a tendency to geminate all voiceless consonants after a short stressed vowel. However, all tense consonants can optionally become geminate. For instance, in the word /feːci/ (lock), the /c/ can become stressed and geminate, to achieve the pronunciation [ˈfeːttʃi]. Similarly, word /saːku/ (bag) can become [saːkku] which can be achieved by the simple rule:
Sri Lankan Portuguese Creole
Standard Portuguese
, SLPC is made up of lexical items from an array of different sources. There is, of course, much influence from the indigenous languages like Tamil and Sinhala. Portuguese
had a vast impact on this creole, and there are also traces of Dutch
and English
. It was also most likely influenced by other creoles and varieties of Indo-Portuguese
, as the island was visited frequently by traders from Goa
and other Portuguese settlements like Daman, and Diu. The similarities with other Indo-Portuguese creoles may also be, however, due to similar circumstances and traits of the languages from which they stem. There is also some Malay influences and loan words.
Example of Portuguese origin words (traced back to Latin origin)
-nariz = nose -Spanish nariz Portuguese nariz
-besos =lips -Spanish besos (kisses) Portuguese beijos (kisses)
-kum = with -Spanish con Portuguese com
¬-hum(a) = ‘one,’ ‘a/an’ -Spanish un(a) Portuguese um(a)
-sumana = week -Spanish semana Portuguese semana
-mael = honey -Spanish miel -Portuguese mel
Example of Portuguese origin words
-meo = middle -Portuguese meio
-cam = ground, floor -Portuguese chão
-almuça = breakfast -Portuguese almoço (lunch)
-fome = hunger -Portuguese fome
-basu ¬= low -Portuguese baixo
Example of Dutch origin words
-krel = curl -Dutch krul
-rol = roll -Dutch rollen
-gorgel = throat -Dutch gorgel
-ruvin = ruin -Dutch ruïne (ruin)
Example of Tamil/ Sinhala origin words
-pepiya = speak -Tamil pepiya
-podiyas = children -Sinhala podi (small) -Batticaloa Tamil potiyan (small boy)
-nona = lady -Sinhala nona
-sarayatiya = walking stick -Sinhala sarayatiya
Also, ‘se’ the conditional marker, comes at the end of the utterance like in:
ja pepiya se nosse jentis dos pesam tinhe se
‘if [they] speak.’ ‘if two of our people are [there].’
In standard Portuguese, the conditional marker ‘se’ usually comes at the beginning of the utterance:
se eu vou contigo,eu vou dirigir. se soubesse do bem que me faz!
“if I go with you, I will drive.” “if [he/she] knew the good it does me!”
Phrase Samples:
Que vosse lo* tem diziado per acha? “what will you please to have?”
Tem aquel verdade? “Is it true?”
Ala nontem asiilei cousa. “There is no such thing.”
Eu nihumtempo novo ouvi aquel. “I have never heard of it.”
Vosse que te* avisa parmi per fai? “What do you advise me to do?”
Huma nonpode ouvi otro huma que papia. “One cannot hear another speak”
Vosse quanto vez ja* caza? “How many times have you married?”
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
. While the predominant languages of the island are Sinhala and Tamil
Tamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
, the interaction of the Portuguese
Portuguese people
The Portuguese are a nation and ethnic group native to the country of Portugal, in the west of the Iberian peninsula of south-west Europe. Their language is Portuguese, and Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion....
and the Sri Lankans led to the evolution of a new language, Sri Lanka Portuguese Creole (SLPC), which flourished as a lingua franca
Lingua franca
A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
on the island for over 350 years (16th to mid 19th centuries). SLPC continues to be spoken by an unknown, extremely small population. All speakers of SLPC are members of the Burgher
Burgher people
The Burghers are a Eurasian ethnic group, historically from Sri Lanka, consisting for the most part of male-line descendants of European colonists from the 16th to 20th centuries and local women, with some minorities of Swedish, Norwegian, French and Irish.Today the mother tongue of the Burghers...
community: descendents of the Portuguese and Dutch who originally founded families in Sri Lanka. Europeans, Eurasia
Eurasia
Eurasia is a continent or supercontinent comprising the traditional continents of Europe and Asia ; covering about 52,990,000 km2 or about 10.6% of the Earth's surface located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres...
ns, and Burghers
Burgher people
The Burghers are a Eurasian ethnic group, historically from Sri Lanka, consisting for the most part of male-line descendants of European colonists from the 16th to 20th centuries and local women, with some minorities of Swedish, Norwegian, French and Irish.Today the mother tongue of the Burghers...
account for 0.2% of the Sri Lankan population. Though only a small group of people actually continue to speak SLPC, the Portuguese cultural traditions are still in wide practice by the mainstream Sri Lankans who are neither of Portuguese descent nor Roman Catholics. SLPC is associated with the Sri Lanka Kaffir people
Sri Lanka Kaffir people
The Sri Lankan Kaffirs are an ethnic group in Sri Lanka who are partially descended from 16th century Portuguese traders and the African slaves who were brought by them to work as labourers and soldiers to fight against the Sri Lankan kings...
, an ethnic minority group. SLPC has been considered the most important creole dialect in Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
because of its vitality and the influence of its vocabulary on the Sinhalese language. Lexical borrowing from Portuguese can be observed in many areas of the Sinhalese language. Portuguese influence has been so deeply absorbed into daily Sri Lankan life and behavior that these traditions will likely continue into perpetuity
History
In 1517, the Portuguese, attracted by the island’s spices and strategic position (midway between their holdings on the west coast of IndiaIndia
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
and Malacca
Malacca
Malacca , dubbed The Historic State or Negeri Bersejarah among locals) is the third smallest Malaysian state, after Perlis and Penang. It is located in the southern region of the Malay Peninsula, on the Straits of Malacca. It borders Negeri Sembilan to the north and the state of Johor to the south...
), sent an expedition from Goa
Goa
Goa , a former Portuguese colony, is India's smallest state by area and the fourth smallest by population. Located in South West India in the region known as the Konkan, it is bounded by the state of Maharashtra to the north, and by Karnataka to the east and south, while the Arabian Sea forms its...
to establish a trading post at Colombo
Colombo
Colombo is the largest city of Sri Lanka. It is located on the west coast of the island and adjacent to Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte, the capital of Sri Lanka. Colombo is often referred to as the capital of the country, since Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte is a satellite city of Colombo...
. They introduced Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
to the island, and granted special favors to those who converted. Using the unstable political situation on the island to their advantage, the Portuguese soon gained the position of guardians of the nominal monarch of southern Sri Lanka. In 1557, Dharmapala
Dharmapala
In Vajrayana Buddhism, a dharmapāla is a type of wrathful deity. The name means "Dharma-defender" in Sanskrit, and the dharmapālas are also known as the Defenders of the Law , or the Protectors of the Law, in English....
, who was king at Kotte
Kotte
Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte , also known as Sri Jayawardenapura or Kotte කෝට්ටේ, is the administrative capital of Sri Lanka. It is located beyond the eastern suburbs of the commercial capital Colombo and is often called New Capital Territory...
, near Colombo
Colombo
Colombo is the largest city of Sri Lanka. It is located on the west coast of the island and adjacent to Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte, the capital of Sri Lanka. Colombo is often referred to as the capital of the country, since Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte is a satellite city of Colombo...
, and had suzerainty
Suzerainty
Suzerainty occurs where a region or people is a tributary to a more powerful entity which controls its foreign affairs while allowing the tributary vassal state some limited domestic autonomy. The dominant entity in the suzerainty relationship, or the more powerful entity itself, is called a...
over Kandy
Kandy
Kandy is a city in the center of Sri Lanka. It was the last capital of the ancient kings' era of Sri Lanka. The city lies in the midst of hills in the Kandy plateau, which crosses an area of tropical plantations, mainly tea. Kandy is one of the most scenic cities in Sri Lanka; it is both an...
and Jaffna
Jaffna
Jaffna is the capital city of the Northern Province, Sri Lanka. It is the administrative headquarters of the Jaffna district located on a peninsula of the same name. Jaffna is approximately six miles away from Kandarodai which served as a famous emporium in the Jaffna peninsula from classical...
(the other two kingdoms) was baptized Dom João Dharmapala breaking a 1,850 year-old tradition as a Christian King sat on the Sinhalese throne. Several Sri Lankan aristocrats and others followed the King and converted. In 1597, Dharmapala, the last king of the Kotte, died childless, and willed his realm to Philip I
Philip II of Spain
Philip II was King of Spain, Portugal, Naples, Sicily, and, while married to Mary I, King of England and Ireland. He was lord of the Seventeen Provinces from 1556 until 1581, holding various titles for the individual territories such as duke or count....
, king of Portugal. In 1617, with the annexation of Jaffna, Portuguese
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
authority extended over the entire lowland zone. Catholicism continued to spread, but the Portuguese did not train an indigenous clergy, so it was simply a microcosm of the church in Portugal.
The Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
were in contact with the Kandyan court as early as 1602, but it wasn’t until 1632 that the Kandyan monarch, Raja Sinha II, invited Dutch cooperation in expelling the Portuguese from the island. A long period of conflict ensued, including Dutch takeover of Batticaloa
Batticaloa
Batticaloa is a city in the Eastern province of Sri Lanka. It is the seat of the Eastern University of Sri Lanka. It is on the east coast, south by south east of Trincomalee, and is situated on an island.-Etymology:...
in 1638, and ending with the fall of Mannar
Mannar, Sri Lanka
Mannar , formerly spelled Manar, is the capital of Mannar District, Sri Lanka. It is located on Mannar Island.Mannar is known for its baobab trees and for its fort, built by the Portuguese in 1560 and taken by the Dutch in 1658 and rebuilt; its ramparts and bastions are intact, though the interior...
and Jaffna
Jaffna
Jaffna is the capital city of the Northern Province, Sri Lanka. It is the administrative headquarters of the Jaffna district located on a peninsula of the same name. Jaffna is approximately six miles away from Kandarodai which served as a famous emporium in the Jaffna peninsula from classical...
in 1658. When Raja Sinha II realized that the Dutch were not about to deliver their new conquests to him, the alliance quickly dissolved into enmity. The Dutch East India Company
Dutch East India Company
The Dutch East India Company was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia...
was primarily interested in commercial profits and resisted engaging in costly military operations against Kandy
Kandy
Kandy is a city in the center of Sri Lanka. It was the last capital of the ancient kings' era of Sri Lanka. The city lies in the midst of hills in the Kandy plateau, which crosses an area of tropical plantations, mainly tea. Kandy is one of the most scenic cities in Sri Lanka; it is both an...
. During the Dutch reign, 1761–1766, was the only period of outright war. The Dutch also maltreated the Catholics and forced conversions to the Calvinist faith, the Catholic Church fell to its foundations as Catholic marriages, practice of the faith, and priests were forbidden by the Dutch. Catholics met secretly at each other’s homes to practice their faith. At this time, the Catholic Church may have disappeared completely in Sri Lanka had it not been for the work of Goan priests who came to the island to save Catholicism.
Origin
The Portuguese were established for twenty-years in GoaGoa
Goa , a former Portuguese colony, is India's smallest state by area and the fourth smallest by population. Located in South West India in the region known as the Konkan, it is bounded by the state of Maharashtra to the north, and by Karnataka to the east and south, while the Arabian Sea forms its...
before coming to Sri Lanka in 1517. By that time a distinct pidgin
Pidgin
A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common. It is most commonly employed in situations such as trade, or where both groups speak languages different from the language of the...
of Portuguese had probably begun to develop, and this was used as the basis for communication with the new territory’s inhabitants. There is very little documented evidence of the linguistic situation at the time, however, it is clear that by the early 17th Century a Portuguese-based pidgin was in use in the Portuguese controlled littoral, and was not unknown in the kingdom of Kandy because of its frequent dealings with outsiders. Also, a creole community had been established consisting of two groups or creole speakers: the Topazes (Tupasses, mestiços, etc.), ‘dark skinned or half-cast people claiming Portuguese descent, and Christian profession, and Kaffirs (Caffres, etc.), or East Africans.
The Topazes were children of local or half-caste mothers and Portuguese or half-caste fathers. They would have been exposed to pidgin/creole Portuguese at home. They identified with Portuguese, a natural occurrence, considering that the Portuguese were at the apex of the social order, though they probably had local family ties as well. The Portuguese brought black slaves to Sri Lanka from East Africa
East Africa
East Africa or Eastern Africa is the easterly region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. In the UN scheme of geographic regions, 19 territories constitute Eastern Africa:...
, Kaffirs. These people would have spoken pidgin Portuguese, and it is likely that many were native creole speakers, but maybe not of the Sri Lanka variety. Because they mainly served as domestic servants, they would have introduced the very young children of Casados (married men who had come with their Portuguese wives as settlers to Sri Lanka) to the pidgin/creole. There may have also been children of chance unions of Portuguese or Topazes with Kaffirs, but it is unclear which group they would have belonged to.
Current Use
Today the language is spoken by descendants of Topazes and Casados, the Portuguese BurgherPortuguese Burghers
The Portuguese Burghers are an ethnic group in Sri Lanka, of mixed Portuguese and Sri Lankan descent. They are Roman Catholic and spoke the Sri Lanka Indo-Portuguese language, a creole based on Portuguese. In modern times, English has become the common language while Sinhalese is taught in school...
community, in the Eastern towns of Batticaloa
Batticaloa
Batticaloa is a city in the Eastern province of Sri Lanka. It is the seat of the Eastern University of Sri Lanka. It is on the east coast, south by south east of Trincomalee, and is situated on an island.-Etymology:...
(Koolavaddy, Mamangam, Uppodai, Dutch Bar, Akkaraipattu
Akkaraipattu
Akkaraipattu is a town in the Ampara District of Sri Lanka, and is located along the Eastern coast of the Island. Akkaraipattu consists of over 35,000 people who settled in this area many centuries ago...
) and Trincomalee
Trincomalee
Trincomalee is a port city in Eastern Province, Sri Lanka and lies on the east coast of the island, about 113 miles south of Jaffna. It has a population of approximately 100,000 . The city is built on a peninsula, which divides the inner and outer harbours. Overlooking the Kottiyar Bay,...
(Palayuttu). But there are also speakers among the Kaffir
Sri Lanka Kaffir people
The Sri Lankan Kaffirs are an ethnic group in Sri Lanka who are partially descended from 16th century Portuguese traders and the African slaves who were brought by them to work as labourers and soldiers to fight against the Sri Lankan kings...
s, descendant of African slaves, in the Northwestern province
North Western Province, Sri Lanka
North Western Province is a province of Sri Lanka. The districts of Kurunegala and Puttalam formulate Wayamba. Its capital is Kurunegala, which has a population of 28,571. The province is known mainly for its numerous coconut plantations. Other main towns in this province are Chilaw and Puttalam...
, in Puttalam
Puttalam
Puttalam is the capital city of the Puttalam District in North Western Province, Sri Lanka.-History:The history of this dry zone dates back to the arrival of Prince Vijaya, nearly 2500 years ago, when his vessel washed ashore. The name "Puttalam" may be a modification of the Tamil word Uppuththalam...
(Mannar
Mannar, Sri Lanka
Mannar , formerly spelled Manar, is the capital of Mannar District, Sri Lanka. It is located on Mannar Island.Mannar is known for its baobab trees and for its fort, built by the Portuguese in 1560 and taken by the Dutch in 1658 and rebuilt; its ramparts and bastions are intact, though the interior...
). In the village of Wahakotte near Galewala, in central Sri Lanka, there is a small community of Catholic
Catholicism
Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....
s with partial Portuguese ancestry, where the language was spoken until two generations ago.
Batticaloa
Batticaloa
Batticaloa is a city in the Eastern province of Sri Lanka. It is the seat of the Eastern University of Sri Lanka. It is on the east coast, south by south east of Trincomalee, and is situated on an island.-Etymology:...
is a medium-sized coastal town in the Eastern Province that has always been an isolated outpost, and has been able to retain many ancient habits. This isolation has been a factor in the preservation of SLPC, but very little information exists about the town’s history. Tamil speakers are the overwhelming majority, but there is also a concentrated community of SLPC speaking Burghers. In the early part of the century most Burghers lived close to the center of the town, but more recently, many have moved to outlying areas. All of the Burghers in Batticaloa speak Tamil, many of them better than they do SLPC, and some also speak Sinhala and/or English. The group has no contact with any other creole speakers on the island, and the creole has for a long time been losing ground to Tamil. Currently, decreasing competence can be observed over successive generations: the younger a Burgher, the less likely they are to know the creole, and if they can speak it, their speech exhibits more Tamil features than that of their parents. Members of the burgher community are in constant interaction with Tamil speakers as they live, work, play, study, and worship together. Burgher children learn Tamil at the same time that they learn the creole. It is difficult to determine how many of Batticaloa’s Burghers speak SLPC, but most probably understand it, though in many homes Tamil has become the predominant language.
The language is facing extinction
Extinct language
An extinct language is a language that no longer has any speakers., or that is no longer in current use. Extinct languages are sometimes contrasted with dead languages, which are still known and used in special contexts in written form, but not as ordinary spoken languages for everyday communication...
, as it is now only used at home and few are able to speak it well. Throughout Sri Lanka many SLPC speakers have emigrated to other countries such as Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, USA and Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. There are still 100 Burgher families in Batticaloa and Trincomalee and 80 Kaffir families in Puttalam that speak the language. SLPC was very prominent in the past, continuing to be in use despite predictions that it would die out, but current prospects for its survival are equally as bleak as in the past.
An early sample of the language was collected by Hugh Nevill
Hugh Nevill
Hugh Nevill was a British civil servant, best known for his scholarship and studies of the culture of Sri Lanka.-Biography:Nevill went to Sri Lanka in 1865, as a Private Secretary to the Chief Justice. From 1869 to 1897 he followed a career in the British Civil Service, which led to his...
, a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
civil servant stationed in Sri Lanka in the late 19th century. Among his large collection of oriental manuscripts is the Sri Lanka Portuguese Creole Manuscript
Sri Lanka Portuguese Creole Manuscript
The Sri Lanka Portuguese Creole Manuscript is a significant record of the Indo-Portuguese creole, as spoken in the 19th century among the Burgher and Kaffir communities...
, containing over a thousand verses and a long text in prose.
Phonology and Phonetics
Precise phonological knowledge of the Sri Lankan Portuguese Creole (SLPC) is limited. The earliest analysis of the language comes from the 19th and early 20th centuries, but since the research was based purely on written data, it lacks insight on how speech was actually produced. The only complete study that includes phonological analysis of native speakers seems to be Ian R Smith’s thesis which was published in 1978. His research surveyed the Creole-speaking people living in the Batticaloa area of Sri Lanka. It can be assumed, unless otherwise indicated, that the phonological information about SLPC in the section on vowels and consonants is solely from his thesis, due to the lack of similar resources of a precise nature.Vowels
Standard Portuguese (SP) has rich vowel phonology with seven to nine oral vowels (depending on which dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
), five nasal vowels, ten oral diphthongs and five nasal diphthongs. While SLPC has retained the same oral vowels found in Standard Continental Portuguese, it does not make the distinction between nasalized and non-nasalized vowels. While the vowels are derived from Portuguese, the vowel features appear more similar to Tamil, since in both Tamil and the Creole vowels are distinguished by length.
Word internal sequences of two vowels do not occur in SLPC, therefore the creole does not appear to have diphthongs as there are in SP. Again, vowel lengthening seems to take place instead of diphthongization.
Chart A shows a vowel chart for SP, where nasality is distinguished from oral vowels, and a vowel chart for SLPC, where vowel length is a distinctive feature. Chart (B) shows both long vowels (such as the word for ‘wax’, [ˈseːɾə], from BrP ‘cerar’) and short vowels (such as in the word for ‘want’, [ˈkeɾə], from BrP ‘querer’).
Besides the distinction between vowel length and vowel nasality, the place of stress on vowels distinguishes SP and SLPC. Both Batticaloan Tamil and the SLPC have entirely predictable stress² patterns whereas SP does not. While stress is predictable, it is not simply a surface phenomenon, so it must be represented lexically.
A few rules about stress in SLPC:
1. Either short or long vowels can take on stress, but long vowels always carry stress.
2. A word can contain only one phonetically long vowel, but numerous unstressed short vowels.
3. Short vowels can be stressed only when found in initial syllables.
4. Stress falls on the last underlying long vowel of a word, or on the first vowel of a word having no long vowel.
Stress is important as it relates to the phonological changes that occur in the Creole. For instance, there is [vowel reduction] by way of prominence reduction of unstressed vowels. This means that relatively long vowels in an unstressed position are replaced by shorter vowels of a similar quality.⁶ :So, as a general rule, low and mid-vowels are contrastive under stress in SLPC, but neutralized and given the features of a mid-vowel when not stressed. Another way to say this is that through a pattern of neutralization, high [sonority] vowels are eliminated in SLPC. The pattern of vowel reduction is shown in Table (1) below:
| Long Vowels - Stressed | Same Low Vowels - Unstressed | |
|---|---|---|
| Unstressed ɒ > o |
|
|
| Unstressed æ > e |
|
|
| Unstressed a > ə |
|
|
-
- Table 1. Patterns of vowel reduction in SLPC on low, unstressed vowels.
Other phonological processes vowels of SLPC demonstrate are epenthesis
Epenthesis
In phonology, epenthesis is the addition of one or more sounds to a word, especially to the interior of a word. Epenthesis may be divided into two types: excrescence, for the addition of a consonant, and anaptyxis for the addition of a vowel....
and elision
Elision
Elision is the omission of one or more sounds in a word or phrase, producing a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce...
. Neither is a very common phenomena, however, so they will only be dealt with briefly. The insertion of epenthetic /u/ occurs to prevent the formation of certain consonant clusters that are atypical. One example of this is seen when the verb ‘to judge’ or [julˈɡa], is nominalized. This is done by the suffix /-dor/, which requires an epenthetic /u/ when added to the stem /julɡ-/, because the potentially resulting consonant cluster of /lɡd/ does not regularly occur in the language. Therefore the combination of the stem, the epenthetic /u/ and the suffix /-dor/ yields the form [julɡuˈdor], where the /u/ is inserted in-between the /lɡ/ and the /d/.
Since word medial sequences of two or more vowels do not occur in Sri Lanka, as mentioned earlier, a process of vowel elision and glide epenthesis can co-occur to prevent vowels from coming together. Firstly, when there exists a possible combination of two vowels as result of some sort of word construction a glide separates them. Secondly, as a result of this the first vowel of the two may be reduced or elided.
| A | front | central | back | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| oral | nasal | oral | nasal | oral | nasal | |
| Close | i | ĩ | ɯ | u | ũ | |
| Close Mid | e | ẽ | o | õ | ||
| Open Mid | ɛ | ɐ | ɐ̃ | ɔ | ||
| Open | a | ã | ||||
A) Standard Portuguese
| B | front | central | back | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Short | Long | Short | Long | Short | long | |
| Close | i | iː | u | uː | ||
| Close Mid | e | eː | o | oː | ||
| Open Mid | ɛ | ɛː | ə | ɔ | ɔː | |
| Open | æ | æː | aː | |||
B)Sri Lanka Portuguese Creole
Consonants
SLPC uses several manners of consonant articulation which are not found in SP. Since this Creole do does express influence from Batticaloa Tamil, English, and Dutch (particularly via loan words.) It is difficult to determine where some of these segments have been loaned from. For instance, the closed front rounded vowel /y/ is considered a glide in SLPC and does not behave this way in Tamil or Portuguese. It seems to have evolved for the high front vowel /i/
As mentioned earlier, SLPC seems to have an affinity for gemination of vowels resulting in a distinction between short and long vowels. As for consonants, there is also a tendency to geminate all voiceless consonants after a short stressed vowel. However, all tense consonants can optionally become geminate. For instance, in the word /feːci/ (lock), the /c/ can become stressed and geminate, to achieve the pronunciation [ˈfeːttʃi]. Similarly, word /saːku/ (bag) can become [saːkku] which can be achieved by the simple rule:
tense] C]-->[+long].
| C | Bilabial | Labiodental | Dento-alveolar | Post-alveolar | Palatal | Velar | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stops | p | b | t | d | k | ɡ | ||||||
| Affricates | tʃ | dʒ | ||||||||||
| Fricatives | f | s | z | |||||||||
| Nasals | m | n | ɲ | |||||||||
| Trills | r | |||||||||||
| lateral liquid | l | |||||||||||
| Glides | w | j | ||||||||||
Sri Lankan Portuguese Creole
| D | Bilabial | Labiodental | Dento-alveolar | Post-alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stops | p | b | t̪ | d̪ | k | ɡ | ||||||||
| Fricatives | f | v | s | z | ʃ | ʒ | ʁ | |||||||
| Nasals | m | n̪ | ||||||||||||
| lateral liquid | l | ʎ | ||||||||||||
| taps | ɾ | |||||||||||||
Standard Portuguese
Vocabulary
Like many creolesCreole language
A creole language, or simply a creole, is a stable natural language developed from the mixing of parent languages; creoles differ from pidgins in that they have been nativized by children as their primary language, making them have features of natural languages that are normally missing from...
, SLPC is made up of lexical items from an array of different sources. There is, of course, much influence from the indigenous languages like Tamil and Sinhala. Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
had a vast impact on this creole, and there are also traces of Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
and English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
. It was also most likely influenced by other creoles and varieties of Indo-Portuguese
Indo-Portuguese
The expression Indo-Portuguese Creoles may mean any of the creole languages spoken in India or Sri Lanka which had a substantial Portuguese influence in grammar or lexicon, such as* Sri Lanka Indo-Portuguese language* Diu Indo-Portuguese language...
, as the island was visited frequently by traders from Goa
Goa
Goa , a former Portuguese colony, is India's smallest state by area and the fourth smallest by population. Located in South West India in the region known as the Konkan, it is bounded by the state of Maharashtra to the north, and by Karnataka to the east and south, while the Arabian Sea forms its...
and other Portuguese settlements like Daman, and Diu. The similarities with other Indo-Portuguese creoles may also be, however, due to similar circumstances and traits of the languages from which they stem. There is also some Malay influences and loan words.
Example of Portuguese origin words (traced back to Latin origin)
-nariz = nose -Spanish nariz Portuguese nariz
-besos =lips -Spanish besos (kisses) Portuguese beijos (kisses)
-kum = with -Spanish con Portuguese com
¬-hum(a) = ‘one,’ ‘a/an’ -Spanish un(a) Portuguese um(a)
-sumana = week -Spanish semana Portuguese semana
-mael = honey -Spanish miel -Portuguese mel
Example of Portuguese origin words
-meo = middle -Portuguese meio
-cam = ground, floor -Portuguese chão
-almuça = breakfast -Portuguese almoço (lunch)
-fome = hunger -Portuguese fome
-basu ¬= low -Portuguese baixo
Example of Dutch origin words
-krel = curl -Dutch krul
-rol = roll -Dutch rollen
-gorgel = throat -Dutch gorgel
-ruvin = ruin -Dutch ruïne (ruin)
Example of Tamil/ Sinhala origin words
-pepiya = speak -Tamil pepiya
-podiyas = children -Sinhala podi (small) -Batticaloa Tamil potiyan (small boy)
-nona = lady -Sinhala nona
-sarayatiya = walking stick -Sinhala sarayatiya
Syntax
The normal sentence structure of standard Portuguese (SP) is subject verb object (SVO). In Sri Lanka Portuguese Creole (SLPC), SVO dominates, but SOV and OSV also occur. The syntax structure is similar to that of Tamil. For example, the verb has been reduced to a single form, and tense-mood-aspect markers (lo, te, ja) indicate the future, present and past tenses; that is, lo leva (SLPC): levarae (SP) 'he will carry'; te folga (SLPC): folgam (SP) 'they rejoice'; ja olha (SLPC): olhei (SP) 'I saw.' (see ‘phrase samples’ below)Also, ‘se’ the conditional marker, comes at the end of the utterance like in:
ja pepiya se nosse jentis dos pesam tinhe se
‘if [they] speak.’ ‘if two of our people are [there].’
In standard Portuguese, the conditional marker ‘se’ usually comes at the beginning of the utterance:
se eu vou contigo,eu vou dirigir. se soubesse do bem que me faz!
“if I go with you, I will drive.” “if [he/she] knew the good it does me!”
Phrase Samples:
Que vosse lo* tem diziado per acha? “what will you please to have?”
- note ‘lo’ to indicate future
Tem aquel verdade? “Is it true?”
Ala nontem asiilei cousa. “There is no such thing.”
Eu nihumtempo novo ouvi aquel. “I have never heard of it.”
Vosse que te* avisa parmi per fai? “What do you advise me to do?”
- note ‘te’ to indicate present
Huma nonpode ouvi otro huma que papia. “One cannot hear another speak”
Vosse quanto vez ja* caza? “How many times have you married?”
- note ‘ja’ to indicate past tense
External links
- Complete downloadable book teaching the basics of Sri Lanka Indo-Portuguese
- Sri Lanka Portuguese Creoles at a Sri Lanka virtual library site.