Sri Lankan Portuguese creole
Sri Lankan Portuguese Creole | |
---|---|
Native to | Portuguese Creole
|
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | – |
Glottolog | mala1544 Malabar–Sri Lanka Portuguese |
Linguasphere | 51-AAC-age |
IETF | idb-LK |
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 number of Sri Lankans, estimated to be extremely small.[2]
All speakers of SLPC are members of the
SLPC is associated with the
History
In 1517, the Portuguese, attracted by the island's spices and strategic position (midway between their holdings on the west coast of India and
The
Origin
The Portuguese reached India in 1498, before coming to Sri Lanka in 1505. 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 Bantus".[2]
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 a small number of Bantu slaves (Kaffirs) to Sri Lanka from the eastern African Great Lakes region. 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.[2]
Sri Lanka was a
Current use
Today, the language is spoken by descendants of Topazes and Mestiços, the
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.[3]
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, United States 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.
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
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 'cera') 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 stress patterns whereas SP does not.[citation needed] While stress is predictable, it is not simply a surface phenomenon, so it must be represented lexically.
A few rules about stress in SLPC:
- Either short or long vowels can take on stress, but long vowels always carry stress.
- A word can contain only one phonetically long vowel, but numerous unstressed short vowels.
- Short vowels can be stressed only when found in initial syllables.
- 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.[citation needed]
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 |
|
|
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.
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 |
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 |
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]
Labial | Dental/Alveolar | Postalveolar | Palatal | Velar | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m | n
|
ɲ | |||
Plosive | voiceless | p | t
|
tʃ | k | |
voiced | b | d
|
dʒ | ɡ | ||
Fricative | voiceless | f | s | |||
voiced | z | |||||
Liquid | lateral | l
|
||||
rhotic | r
|
|||||
Glide
|
w | j |
Labial | Dental/Alveolar | Postalveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m | n̪
|
|||||
Plosive | voiceless | p | t̪
|
k | |||
voiced | b | d̪
|
ɡ | ||||
Fricative | voiceless | f | s | ʃ | ʁ | ||
voiced | v | z | ʒ | ||||
Liquid | lateral | l
|
ʎ | ||||
rhotic | ɾ |
Vocabulary
Like many
Example of Portuguese origin words:
Lemma | Portuguese word | Gloss[8] |
---|---|---|
nariz | nariz | nose |
besos | beiços | lips |
kum | com | with |
hum(a) | um(a) | one, a/an |
sumana | semana | week |
mael | mel | honey |
meo | meio | middle |
cam | chão | ground, floor |
almuça | almoço (lunch) | breakfast |
fome | fome | hunger |
basu | baixo | low |
Lemma | Dutch word | Gloss |
---|---|---|
krel | krul | curl |
rol | rollen | roll |
gorgel | gorgel | throat |
ruvin | ruïne | ruin |
Example of Tamil / Sinhala origin words:
Lemma | Tamil/Sinhala word | Gloss[3] |
---|---|---|
pepiya | Tamil pepiya | speak |
podiyas | Sinhala podi (small), from Batticaloa Tamil potiyan (small boy) |
children |
nona | Sinhala nona, from Portuguese dona | lady |
sarayatiya | Sinhala sarayatiya | walking stick |
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.[4] 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): levará (SP) 'he will carry'; te folga (SLPC): folgam (SP) 'they rejoice'; ja olha (SLPC): olhei (SP) 'I saw.' [8] (see 'phrase samples' below)
Also, 'se' the conditional marker, comes at the end of the utterance like in:[4]
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
See also
- Sri Lanka Kaffir people
- Portuguese period in Ceylon
- Burgher people
- Dutch period in Ceylon
References
- ^ Indo-Portuguese (Sri Lanka) at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ^ a b c d e f Smith, IR. Sri Lanka Portuguese Creole Phonology. 1978. Dravidian Linguistics Association.
- ^ a b c d e f Jayasuriya, Shihan de Silva (2000). "The Portuguese Cultural Imprint on Sri Lanka". Lusotopie. 7 (1): 253–259.
- ^ a b c d Jackson, KD. Sing without Shame: oral traditions in Indo-Portuguese Creole verse: with transcription and analysis. 1990. John Benjamins Pub Co
- ^ Jacques Arends, Pieter Muysken, & Norval Smith, 1994, Pidgins and Creoles: An introduction, p. 352
- ^ Jorge Manuel Flores, 2007, Re-exploring the Links: History and Constructed Histories Between Portugal and Sri Lanka
- ^ John Holm, 1989, Pidgins and Creoles, vol. 2: Reference Survey
- ^ a b Jayasuriya, Shihan de Silva (1999). "'On the Indo-Portuguese of Ceylon': A Translation of a Hugo Schuchardt Manuscript" (PDF). Portuguese Studies. 15: 52–69.
- ^ Crosswhite, Katherine. Vowel Reduction in Optimality Theory. 2001. illustrated. Routledge
- Callaway, John (1820). A vocabulary in the Ceylon Portuguese, and English languages, with a series of familiar phrases. Colombo: Wesleyan Mission Press.
- Dalgado, Sebastião Rodolfo (1900). Dialecto Indo-Português de Ceylão. Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional.
- Smith, Ian Russell (1977). Sri Lanka Creole Portuguese phonology (Ph.D. thesis). Cornell University.
External links
- Sri Lanka Portuguese Creoles at a Sri Lanka virtual library site.
- Documentation of Sri Lanka Portuguese Cardoso, Hugo C. 2017. London: SOAS, Endangered Languages Archive
- APiCS Online - Survey chapter: Sri Lanka Portuguese