When it comes to language, few corners of the globe are as diverse as South Asia. Throughout hist... more When it comes to language, few corners of the globe are as diverse as South Asia. Throughout history, this has been an area of high multilingualism and intense linguistic contact, leading to often extreme processes of change, linguistic conflict and accommodation, as well as the emergence of new languages. However, while diversity may be the order of the day in South Asia, language obsolescence and loss have now become equally conspicuous. As a matter of fact, the most linguistically diverse countries in this region feature prominently in the worlwide charts of linguistic endangerment. In UNESCO’s online (and constantly evolving) Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger, for instance, India has more entries than any other country, viz. 197 (in December 2012). Other countries in the region with a significant presence in the Atlas include Nepal (71 languages listed), Pakistan (28), Afghanistan (23) and Bhutan (19); only the Maldives are absent.
In South Asian nations, there is an established tradition of research and reflection on the preservation of linguistic and cultural diversity. Yet, given the enormity of the task, more needs to be done to understand the causes of linguistic endangerment and design solutions. It is the intention of this volume to contribute to the debate by focusing on specifically South Asian problems, processes and constraints, from both a synchronic and a diachronic perspective. As expected, most of the languages studied are, by most definitions, currently endangered - the type of languages that might feature in UNESCO’s Atlas. However, some authors also discuss languages whose vitality (and even dominance in some domains) seems assured in the near future. Their articles are a reminder that language endangerment is a complex and multi-faceted issue, and call for long-term approaches to language preservation. [...]
(from the "Foreword")
"On the southern tip of the Saurashtra peninsula of Gujarat (India) and commanding a strategic lo... more "On the southern tip of the Saurashtra peninsula of Gujarat (India) and commanding a strategic lookout over the Arabian sea, the small island of Diu has aroused seemingly disproportionate colonial interests throughout its history. Among the various effects of its long domination by faraway Portugal (1535-1961) was the formation of a local variety of Indo-Portuguese, a contact language resulting from the encounter of various linguistic influences, chief among which Gujarati and Portuguese. Although the Portuguese-lexified creoles of Asia have deserved scholarly attention from the late 19th-century, the trend towards accurate linguistic description of these languages is a recent one.
This study provides a linguistic account of present-day Diu Indo-Portuguese, duly embedded in its reconstructed historical and sociodemographic context, with the intention to contribute to our burgeoning understanding of the formation, development and present vitality of the contact languages of (South) Asia and elsewhere."
A practical grammar of Dutch, translated into Portuguese for the use of lusophone students.
See:... more A practical grammar of Dutch, translated into Portuguese for the use of lusophone students.
Recently, in the archives of Lisbon’s Museu Nacional de Arqueologia, a manuscript of considerable... more Recently, in the archives of Lisbon’s Museu Nacional de Arqueologia, a manuscript of considerable historical, linguistic and literary interest, presumably hailing from 18th century Batavia (now Jakarta, in Indonesia), has been discovered. «Rediscovered» might be a more accurate term, since the manuscript, which bears the title of Panton Malaijoe dan Portugees (Malay and Portuguese Pantuns), was not entirely unknown. In fact, it surfaced in the 19" century and was mentioned by one ofits former owners, Professor Hugo Schuchardt from the University of Graz, in his description of the Portuguese-lexified creole of Batavia and Tugu.
The Indo-Portuguese creole languages that formed along the former Malabar Coast of southwestern I... more The Indo-Portuguese creole languages that formed along the former Malabar Coast of southwestern India, currently seriously endangered, are arguably the oldest of all Asian-Portuguese creoles. Recent documentation efforts in Cannanore and the Cochin area have revealed a language that is strikingly similar to its substrate/adstrate Malayalam in several fundamental domains of grammar, often contradicting previous records from the late 19th-century and the input of its main lexifier, Portuguese. In this article, this is shown by comparing Malabar Indo-Portuguese with both Malayalam and Portuguese with respect to features in the domains of word order (head-final syntax and harmonic syntactic patterns) and case-marking (the distribution of the oblique case). Based on older records and certain synchronic linguistic features of the Malabar Creoles, this article proposes that the observed isomorphism between modern Malabar Indo-Portuguese and Malayalam has to be explained as the product of e...
Portuguese‐lexified creoles (PLCs) include some of the oldest of the European‐lexified creoles wh... more Portuguese‐lexified creoles (PLCs) include some of the oldest of the European‐lexified creoles which developed out of the colonial expansion of the Early Modern Age. This chapter describes in detail the current and past distribution of the PLCs. It surveys diachronic proposals applicable within subgroups of PLCs. The chapter focuses on theories that imply the influence of a PLC or Portuguese‐lexified pidgin on contact languages currently not classified as Portuguese‐lexified. One of the most interesting effects of the inaugural role of Portuguese in the European global linguistic expansion of the Modern Age is that, for various reasons and to different degrees, Portuguese often came to impact the linguistic repertoire of the colonizers who followed and, on many occasions, occupied places where this language had already created roots. Wherever PLCs have remained in close contact with Portuguese, a number of different trajectories can be identified.
As will become apparent further along in the discussion, it seems intuitive to account for (at le... more As will become apparent further along in the discussion, it seems intuitive to account for (at least part of) the development of kaba and teh with reference to grammaticalization. The special relationship between the processes of grammaticalization and creolization, therefore, must be given ...
This article is a study of the Dravido-Portuguese creoles of the Malabar (modern-day Kerala, Indi... more This article is a study of the Dravido-Portuguese creoles of the Malabar (modern-day Kerala, India) and Sri Lanka in terms of the formal means they use to mark the addressee arguments of various predicates of verbal interaction (e.g. talk, say, ask), and compares the functional range of such markers in the creoles with their counterparts in the lexifier language (Portuguese) and in the Dravidian adstrates (Malayalam and Tamil). This comparative study shows the different contributions of the lexifier and of the adstrates to the case-marking system of the present-day Dravido-Portuguese creoles, as well as the ways in which the functional range of the creole case-markers reveal diachronic processes of functional reanalysis.
Given that the Portuguese-lexified creoles of South Asia are currently spoken by relatively small... more Given that the Portuguese-lexified creoles of South Asia are currently spoken by relatively small and close-knit communities, it is often assumed that little sociolinguistic variation will be found within them and/or that this must have been the case throughout their history. This article, however, explores how modern and earlier (18th-/early-20th-century) descriptions and commentaries on the Indo-Portuguese communities reveal a somewhat stratified linguistic repertoire not unlike that of various other creoles around the world. Based on a survey of sources of different periods and character, I argue that there is good reason to assume a considerable degree of sociolinguistic variation in the IndoPortuguese communities even when the available sources do not record it, and that failure to do so may compromise the validity of our linguistic studies.
THIS ESSAY PROVIDES a state-of-the-art of current research on the Indo-Portuguese creoles of the ... more THIS ESSAY PROVIDES a state-of-the-art of current research on the Indo-Portuguese creoles of the Malabar. Having been given up as extinct, these creoles have been off the radar of linguists and historians alike for a long while. Yet, they are particularly important as potential descendants of the earliest forms of contact varieties of Portuguese that formed in Asia in the sixteenth century, and raise questions that interact with a social historiography of the Indo-Portuguese communities of the region. This essay will focus on four aspects of the study of these languages which operate on a linguistic-historical interface: (a) the social conditions required for their formation; (b) their course after the end of Portuguese colonial rule; (c) their putative foundational role in the context of Luso-Asian creoles; and (d) the social and linguistic stratification encapsulated in modern and late nineteenth-century records. This discussion is meant as a step towards the integration of linguistic evidence into the study of Indo-Portuguese social history, and of historical evidence into the study of Indo-Portuguese linguistics.
Documentation and Maintenance of Contact Languages from South Asia to East Asia , 2019
Sri Lanka Portuguese (SLP) is a Portuguese-lexified creole formed during Sri Lanka’s Portuguese c... more Sri Lanka Portuguese (SLP) is a Portuguese-lexified creole formed during Sri Lanka’s Portuguese colonial period, which lasted from the early 16th century to the mid-17th century. The language withstood several political changes and became an important medium of communication for a portion of the island’s population, but reached the late 20th century much reduced in its distribution and vitality, having essentially contracted to the Portuguese Burgher community of Eastern Sri Lanka. In the 1970s and 1980s, the language was the object of considerable research and documentation efforts, which were, however, curtailed by the Sri Lankan civil war. This chapter reports on the activities, challenges, and results of a recent documentation project developed in the post-war period and designed to create an appropriate and diverse record of modern SLP. The project is characterised by a highly multidisciplinary approach that combines linguistics and ethnomusicology, a strong focus on video recordings and open-access dissemination of materials through an online digital platform (Endangered Languages Archive), archival prospection to collect diachronic sources, a sociolinguistic component aimed at determining ethnolinguistic vitality with a view to delineating revitalisation strategies, and a strongly collaborative nature. Here, we describe the principal outputs of the documentation project, which, in addition to a digital corpus of transcribed and annotated materials representing modern manifestations of SLP and the oral/musical traditions of the Burgher community, also include the findings of the sociolinguistic survey, an orthographic proposal for the language, as well as the copies and transcriptions of hard-to-obtain historical sources on SLP (grammars, dictionaries, biblical translations, liturgical texts, and collections of songs).
Este artigo descreve e analisa um sincretismo parcial entre diminutivo e feminino identificado no... more Este artigo descreve e analisa um sincretismo parcial entre diminutivo e feminino identificado nos crioulos indo-portugueses norteiros (em particular o de Diu e o crioulo extinto de Bombaim) que representa uma divergência em relação ao português, a sua principal língua lexificadora. Um levantamento dos crioulos luso-asiáticos em geral, feito com o intuito de definir o âmbito geográfico deste fenómeno, permite circunscrevê-lo à zona noroeste da Índia, em regiões com línguas dominantes indo-áricas (o guzerate e o marata). A partir desta observação, avançam-se e discutem-se diversos factores explicativos, alguns universais e outros ligados ao contributo das línguas de substrato/adstrato, potencialmente envolvidos no desenvolvimento do sincretismo diminutivo-feminino neste subgrupo dos crioulos de base lexical portuguesa.
When it comes to language, few corners of the globe are as diverse as South Asia. Throughout hist... more When it comes to language, few corners of the globe are as diverse as South Asia. Throughout history, this has been an area of high multilingualism and intense linguistic contact, leading to often extreme processes of change, linguistic conflict and accommodation, as well as the emergence of new languages. However, while diversity may be the order of the day in South Asia, language obsolescence and loss have now become equally conspicuous. As a matter of fact, the most linguistically diverse countries in this region feature prominently in the worlwide charts of linguistic endangerment. In UNESCO’s online (and constantly evolving) Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger, for instance, India has more entries than any other country, viz. 197 (in December 2012). Other countries in the region with a significant presence in the Atlas include Nepal (71 languages listed), Pakistan (28), Afghanistan (23) and Bhutan (19); only the Maldives are absent.
In South Asian nations, there is an established tradition of research and reflection on the preservation of linguistic and cultural diversity. Yet, given the enormity of the task, more needs to be done to understand the causes of linguistic endangerment and design solutions. It is the intention of this volume to contribute to the debate by focusing on specifically South Asian problems, processes and constraints, from both a synchronic and a diachronic perspective. As expected, most of the languages studied are, by most definitions, currently endangered - the type of languages that might feature in UNESCO’s Atlas. However, some authors also discuss languages whose vitality (and even dominance in some domains) seems assured in the near future. Their articles are a reminder that language endangerment is a complex and multi-faceted issue, and call for long-term approaches to language preservation. [...]
(from the "Foreword")
"On the southern tip of the Saurashtra peninsula of Gujarat (India) and commanding a strategic lo... more "On the southern tip of the Saurashtra peninsula of Gujarat (India) and commanding a strategic lookout over the Arabian sea, the small island of Diu has aroused seemingly disproportionate colonial interests throughout its history. Among the various effects of its long domination by faraway Portugal (1535-1961) was the formation of a local variety of Indo-Portuguese, a contact language resulting from the encounter of various linguistic influences, chief among which Gujarati and Portuguese. Although the Portuguese-lexified creoles of Asia have deserved scholarly attention from the late 19th-century, the trend towards accurate linguistic description of these languages is a recent one.
This study provides a linguistic account of present-day Diu Indo-Portuguese, duly embedded in its reconstructed historical and sociodemographic context, with the intention to contribute to our burgeoning understanding of the formation, development and present vitality of the contact languages of (South) Asia and elsewhere."
A practical grammar of Dutch, translated into Portuguese for the use of lusophone students.
See:... more A practical grammar of Dutch, translated into Portuguese for the use of lusophone students.
Recently, in the archives of Lisbon’s Museu Nacional de Arqueologia, a manuscript of considerable... more Recently, in the archives of Lisbon’s Museu Nacional de Arqueologia, a manuscript of considerable historical, linguistic and literary interest, presumably hailing from 18th century Batavia (now Jakarta, in Indonesia), has been discovered. «Rediscovered» might be a more accurate term, since the manuscript, which bears the title of Panton Malaijoe dan Portugees (Malay and Portuguese Pantuns), was not entirely unknown. In fact, it surfaced in the 19" century and was mentioned by one ofits former owners, Professor Hugo Schuchardt from the University of Graz, in his description of the Portuguese-lexified creole of Batavia and Tugu.
The Indo-Portuguese creole languages that formed along the former Malabar Coast of southwestern I... more The Indo-Portuguese creole languages that formed along the former Malabar Coast of southwestern India, currently seriously endangered, are arguably the oldest of all Asian-Portuguese creoles. Recent documentation efforts in Cannanore and the Cochin area have revealed a language that is strikingly similar to its substrate/adstrate Malayalam in several fundamental domains of grammar, often contradicting previous records from the late 19th-century and the input of its main lexifier, Portuguese. In this article, this is shown by comparing Malabar Indo-Portuguese with both Malayalam and Portuguese with respect to features in the domains of word order (head-final syntax and harmonic syntactic patterns) and case-marking (the distribution of the oblique case). Based on older records and certain synchronic linguistic features of the Malabar Creoles, this article proposes that the observed isomorphism between modern Malabar Indo-Portuguese and Malayalam has to be explained as the product of e...
Portuguese‐lexified creoles (PLCs) include some of the oldest of the European‐lexified creoles wh... more Portuguese‐lexified creoles (PLCs) include some of the oldest of the European‐lexified creoles which developed out of the colonial expansion of the Early Modern Age. This chapter describes in detail the current and past distribution of the PLCs. It surveys diachronic proposals applicable within subgroups of PLCs. The chapter focuses on theories that imply the influence of a PLC or Portuguese‐lexified pidgin on contact languages currently not classified as Portuguese‐lexified. One of the most interesting effects of the inaugural role of Portuguese in the European global linguistic expansion of the Modern Age is that, for various reasons and to different degrees, Portuguese often came to impact the linguistic repertoire of the colonizers who followed and, on many occasions, occupied places where this language had already created roots. Wherever PLCs have remained in close contact with Portuguese, a number of different trajectories can be identified.
As will become apparent further along in the discussion, it seems intuitive to account for (at le... more As will become apparent further along in the discussion, it seems intuitive to account for (at least part of) the development of kaba and teh with reference to grammaticalization. The special relationship between the processes of grammaticalization and creolization, therefore, must be given ...
This article is a study of the Dravido-Portuguese creoles of the Malabar (modern-day Kerala, Indi... more This article is a study of the Dravido-Portuguese creoles of the Malabar (modern-day Kerala, India) and Sri Lanka in terms of the formal means they use to mark the addressee arguments of various predicates of verbal interaction (e.g. talk, say, ask), and compares the functional range of such markers in the creoles with their counterparts in the lexifier language (Portuguese) and in the Dravidian adstrates (Malayalam and Tamil). This comparative study shows the different contributions of the lexifier and of the adstrates to the case-marking system of the present-day Dravido-Portuguese creoles, as well as the ways in which the functional range of the creole case-markers reveal diachronic processes of functional reanalysis.
Given that the Portuguese-lexified creoles of South Asia are currently spoken by relatively small... more Given that the Portuguese-lexified creoles of South Asia are currently spoken by relatively small and close-knit communities, it is often assumed that little sociolinguistic variation will be found within them and/or that this must have been the case throughout their history. This article, however, explores how modern and earlier (18th-/early-20th-century) descriptions and commentaries on the Indo-Portuguese communities reveal a somewhat stratified linguistic repertoire not unlike that of various other creoles around the world. Based on a survey of sources of different periods and character, I argue that there is good reason to assume a considerable degree of sociolinguistic variation in the IndoPortuguese communities even when the available sources do not record it, and that failure to do so may compromise the validity of our linguistic studies.
THIS ESSAY PROVIDES a state-of-the-art of current research on the Indo-Portuguese creoles of the ... more THIS ESSAY PROVIDES a state-of-the-art of current research on the Indo-Portuguese creoles of the Malabar. Having been given up as extinct, these creoles have been off the radar of linguists and historians alike for a long while. Yet, they are particularly important as potential descendants of the earliest forms of contact varieties of Portuguese that formed in Asia in the sixteenth century, and raise questions that interact with a social historiography of the Indo-Portuguese communities of the region. This essay will focus on four aspects of the study of these languages which operate on a linguistic-historical interface: (a) the social conditions required for their formation; (b) their course after the end of Portuguese colonial rule; (c) their putative foundational role in the context of Luso-Asian creoles; and (d) the social and linguistic stratification encapsulated in modern and late nineteenth-century records. This discussion is meant as a step towards the integration of linguistic evidence into the study of Indo-Portuguese social history, and of historical evidence into the study of Indo-Portuguese linguistics.
Documentation and Maintenance of Contact Languages from South Asia to East Asia , 2019
Sri Lanka Portuguese (SLP) is a Portuguese-lexified creole formed during Sri Lanka’s Portuguese c... more Sri Lanka Portuguese (SLP) is a Portuguese-lexified creole formed during Sri Lanka’s Portuguese colonial period, which lasted from the early 16th century to the mid-17th century. The language withstood several political changes and became an important medium of communication for a portion of the island’s population, but reached the late 20th century much reduced in its distribution and vitality, having essentially contracted to the Portuguese Burgher community of Eastern Sri Lanka. In the 1970s and 1980s, the language was the object of considerable research and documentation efforts, which were, however, curtailed by the Sri Lankan civil war. This chapter reports on the activities, challenges, and results of a recent documentation project developed in the post-war period and designed to create an appropriate and diverse record of modern SLP. The project is characterised by a highly multidisciplinary approach that combines linguistics and ethnomusicology, a strong focus on video recordings and open-access dissemination of materials through an online digital platform (Endangered Languages Archive), archival prospection to collect diachronic sources, a sociolinguistic component aimed at determining ethnolinguistic vitality with a view to delineating revitalisation strategies, and a strongly collaborative nature. Here, we describe the principal outputs of the documentation project, which, in addition to a digital corpus of transcribed and annotated materials representing modern manifestations of SLP and the oral/musical traditions of the Burgher community, also include the findings of the sociolinguistic survey, an orthographic proposal for the language, as well as the copies and transcriptions of hard-to-obtain historical sources on SLP (grammars, dictionaries, biblical translations, liturgical texts, and collections of songs).
Este artigo descreve e analisa um sincretismo parcial entre diminutivo e feminino identificado no... more Este artigo descreve e analisa um sincretismo parcial entre diminutivo e feminino identificado nos crioulos indo-portugueses norteiros (em particular o de Diu e o crioulo extinto de Bombaim) que representa uma divergência em relação ao português, a sua principal língua lexificadora. Um levantamento dos crioulos luso-asiáticos em geral, feito com o intuito de definir o âmbito geográfico deste fenómeno, permite circunscrevê-lo à zona noroeste da Índia, em regiões com línguas dominantes indo-áricas (o guzerate e o marata). A partir desta observação, avançam-se e discutem-se diversos factores explicativos, alguns universais e outros ligados ao contributo das línguas de substrato/adstrato, potencialmente envolvidos no desenvolvimento do sincretismo diminutivo-feminino neste subgrupo dos crioulos de base lexical portuguesa.
This study explores the use of a particular causal morpheme, derived from a protoform that may be... more This study explores the use of a particular causal morpheme, derived from a protoform that may be reconstructed as *[V/B]IDA, in the Portuguese-lexified creoles of Asia. A survey of the various formal means employed by the AsianPortuguese creoles to establish relationships of cause, reason, and purpose demonstrates that only three may be said with certainty to use or have used a *[V/B]IDA-related morpheme, viz. those of the Malabar (South India), Sri Lanka, and Batavia/Tugu (Java, Indonesia) – a geographical distribution which, it is argued, calls for an assessment of the exact role of South Asian populations in the formation of Batavia/Tugu creole, in addition to other pieces of linguistic and ethnographic evidence. In order to determine the etymology and synchronic transformations of these causal morphemes, this study also explores several diachronic and dialectal corpora of Portuguese, which reveals that the Portuguese expression por via de ‘by way of’ is a more likely source tha...
Na segunda metade do seculo XIX, em resposta a um crescente interesse academico pelos povos e lin... more Na segunda metade do seculo XIX, em resposta a um crescente interesse academico pelos povos e linguas do mundo mas tambem a um projecto de dominar as linguas das colonias europeias para fins de administracao e missionacao, comecam a surgir as primeiras descricoes de linguas de Timor-Leste, a data colonia portuguesa. Este estudo reconstitui a sequencia de gramaticas, dicionarios e obras didacticas produzidos em lingua portuguesa, entre essa altura e a ocupacao japonesa no contexto da Segunda Guerra Mundial, apresentando os seus autores (principalmente missionarios mas tambem outros agentes coloniais) e analisando o contexto, motivacao e metodologia da sua producao. Aborda ainda as dinâmicas de colaboracao ou competicao que e possivel entrever nestas obras de natureza linguistica e noutros documentos complementares, nos quais se percebem a dimensao e constrangimentos da polinizacao entre as diversas fontes, e ainda o impacto da sua publicacao no processo de (re)conhecimento da diversi...
The area of Bidau, in the East Timorese capital of Dili, was home to the only documented form of ... more The area of Bidau, in the East Timorese capital of Dili, was home to the only documented form of Creole Portuguese in Timor. Although Bidau Creole Portuguese is now extinct, by most accounts, a few scattered records allow a glimpse into what it must have been like, and reveal its clear relationship with other Southeast Asian Portuguese-based creoles; Baxter’s (1990a) study of Bidau Creole Portuguese was based mostly on a set of recordings made in the context of theMissão Antropológica de Timor[“Anthropological Mission to Timor”, 1953–1954]. In this article, Baxter (1990a: 3) mentions that “[s]o far, the earliest located reference to Bidau Creole Portuguese, and one which contains some impressionistic examples of conversations and the verse of a song, is Castro (1943: 56, 177)”. However, since the publication of this study, a few earlier references to what can be interpreted as Portuguese-based creole in Timor have been located in unpublished archival sources. These sources are lette...
Traces on the Sea: Portuguese Interaction with Asia, 2022
The long-lasting presence of the Portuguese in Asia had an evident impact on several domains of c... more The long-lasting presence of the Portuguese in Asia had an evident impact on several domains of culture, knowledge, and social practice across the continent, and also motivated exchanges which were carried over to Lusophone communities around the world. The products of Asian-Portuguese contacts are complex and multifaceted, and have been the object of scholarly interest since at least the 19th century - a history of academic exploration in which Goa has often taken centre stage, not just as an object of analysis but also as a centre of scholarly production focusing especially on the South Asian sphere. Despite this, there is still plenty to discover with respect to the impact of the Portuguese in Asia, in various geographies and domains. In this chapter, I argue that, when it comes to the specific area of Indo-Portuguese linguistic interactions, scholars and institutions in Goa are in a privileged position to make original contributions, on account of their access to sources (written archival sources as well as spoken linguistic manifestations still in practice across South Asia), and of a unique confluence of linguistic proficiency which combines Portuguese and an array of South Asian languages (including, but not restricted to, Konkani). This is meant to highlight significant opportunities for scholars in Goa to engage productively in the area of Contact Linguistics, turning Goa once again into a centre of Indo-Portuguese linguistic research.
In this article I compare and contrast the comparative constructions in the Luso-Asian Creoles, e... more In this article I compare and contrast the comparative constructions in the Luso-Asian Creoles, establishing their similarities and dissimilarities with Portuguese as well as with all the most relevant adstrate languages. Through a detailed look at a particular construction, this study aims to uncover the various creoles’ degree of reliance on either lexifier or adstrate models and unearth potential links between them. The results of this study are then articulated with a number of comments previously made about the Luso-Asian creoles in particular (such as their interrelatedness, and the perceived impact of socio-historical differences on linguistic structure) and language contact in general (such as the role of congruence in the selection of linguistic features).
Portuguese‐lexified creoles (PLCs) include some of the oldest of the European‐lexified creoles wh... more Portuguese‐lexified creoles (PLCs) include some of the oldest of the European‐lexified creoles which developed out of the colonial expansion of the Early Modern Age. This chapter describes in detail the current and past distribution of the PLCs. It surveys diachronic proposals applicable within subgroups of PLCs. The chapter focuses on theories that imply the influence of a PLC or Portuguese‐lexified pidgin on contact languages currently not classified as Portuguese‐lexified. One of the most interesting effects of the inaugural role of Portuguese in the European global linguistic expansion of the Modern Age is that, for various reasons and to different degrees, Portuguese often came to impact the linguistic repertoire of the colonizers who followed and, on many occasions, occupied places where this language had already created roots. Wherever PLCs have remained in close contact with Portuguese, a number of different trajectories can be identified.
Documentation and maintenance of contact languages from South Asia to East Asia, 2019
Sri Lanka Portuguese (SLP) is a Portuguese-lexified creole formed during Sri Lanka’s Portuguese c... more Sri Lanka Portuguese (SLP) is a Portuguese-lexified creole formed during Sri Lanka’s Portuguese colonial period, which lasted from the early 16th century to the mid-17th century. The language withstood several political changes and became an important medium of communication for a portion of the island’s population, but reached the late 20th century much reduced in its distribution and vitality, having essentially contracted to the Portuguese Burgher community of Eastern Sri Lanka. In the 1970s and 1980s, the language was the object of considerable research and documentation efforts, which were, however, curtailed by the Sri Lankan civil war. This chapter reports on the activities, challenges, and results of a recent documentation project developed in the post-war period and designed to create an appropriate and diverse record of modern SLP. The project is characterised by a highly multidisciplinary approach that combines linguistics and ethnomusicology, a strong focus on video recordings and open-access dissemination of materials through an online digital platform (Endangered Languages Archive), archival prospection to collect diachronic sources, a sociolinguistic component aimed at determining ethnolinguistic vitality with a view to delineating revitalisation strategies, and a strongly collaborative nature. This chapter describes the principal outputs of the documentation project, which, in addition to a digital corpus of transcribed and annotated materials representing modern manifestations of SLP and the oral/musical traditions of the Burghers, also include the findings of the sociolinguistic survey, an orthographic proposal for the language, as well as the copies and transcriptions of hard-to-obtain historical sources on SLP (grammars, dictionaries, biblical translations, liturgical texts, collections of songs).
"The formation of Luso-Asian communities and identities, from the 16th century onwards, was accom... more "The formation of Luso-Asian communities and identities, from the 16th century onwards, was accompanied by the development of vibrant oral traditions, which include songs, prayers, stories, riddles, etc. This article starts by looking at the song repertoire of the Indo-Portuguese communities of the former Província do Norte (centred on the cities of Bassein, Bombay, Chaul, Daman and Diu). I will describe this relatively understudied repertoire, and establish its position within the wider context of Luso-Asian oral traditions across Asia. I intend to show the extent to which the social history of these communities can account not only for commonalities among repertoires from as far afield as India, Sri Lanka, Malacca/Singapore and Macau, but also some of their differences. The significance of this type of research for the history of the Luso-Asian communities rests on the principle that the exchange of cultural/linguistic elements implies population movement and contact.
The oral repertoire of the Norteiro communities is still vital in Diu and Daman, and further data is available in various written sources (e.g. Schuchardt 1883; Dalgado 1902-3; 1906; Moniz 1923; O Oriente Português bulletin). Its analysis reveals a number of important characteristics:
a) Linguistic heterogeneity: part of the observed formal heterogeneity is introduced by the collectors’ orthographic preferences (which often betray their linguistic attitudes), but the linguistic register of songs does vary, ranging from the various creoles of these communities to European Portuguese and variable approximations which testify to the complex sociolinguistic profile of these communities throughout their history;
b) Thematic breadth: the corpus contains both religious and profane songs, and their linguistic characteristics indicate very different social origins and formative contexts;
c) Recurrence of thematic elements: the repetition of themes and verses in the oral traditions of various territories is evident, suggesting a history of cultural exchange and population mobility;
d) Nativisation of thematic elements: recurrent themes and poetic material are often given a local flavour through the addition of strictly local referents (e.g. toponyms) and, in the process, are recombined and rearranged in a free and creative manner.
Although the territories of the former Província do Norte form a particularly close-knit unit, I will show that the links revealed by their oral repertoire extend to elsewhere in South Asia, Southeast and East Asia. It will become clear that, despite their obvious differences, the oral traditions of all Luso-Asian communities (from India to Malacca, Macau and Java) did not develop in isolation, but through a process of intense socio-cultural contact which is gaining increasing historical support.
References
DALGADO, S. R. - Dialecto indo-português de Damão. Ta-Ssi-Yang-Kuo 3 (1902) 359-367; 4 (1903) 515-523.
DALGADO, S. R. - Dialecto indo-português do Norte. Revista Lusitana 9 (1906) 142-166; 193-228.
MONIZ, A. F. - Notícias e documentos para a história de Damão – Antiga Província do Norte, vol. I.Bastorá: Tip. «Rangel», 1923.
SCHUCHARDT, H. - Kreolische Studien III. Über das Indoportugiesische von Diu. Sitzungsberichte der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Wien (philosophisch-historische Klasse) 103 (1883) 3-18."
This paper provides a state-of-the-art of current research on the Indo-Portuguese creoles of the ... more This paper provides a state-of-the-art of current research on the Indo-Portuguese creoles of the Malabar. These creoles were off the radar of linguists and historians alike for a long while, to the point of having been given as extinct. Yet, in the domain of language contact in Asia, they are particularly important as potential descendants of the earliest forms of contact varieties of Portuguese to form in this continent in the 16th century, and raise questions which interact with a social historiography of the Indo-Portuguese communities of the region. Here, I examine four aspects of the study of these languages which operate on a linguistic-historical interface: a) the social conditions required for their formation; b) their course after the end of Portuguese colonial rule; c) their putative foundational role in the context of Luso-Asian creoles; and d) the social and linguistic stratification encapsulated in modern and late 19th-century records. This discussion is meant as a step towards the integration of linguistic evidence into the study of Indo-Portuguese social history, and of historical evidence into the study of Indo-Portuguese linguistics.
While Jacques Arends’ research primarily dealt with the Surinamese Creoles, his findings and prop... more While Jacques Arends’ research primarily dealt with the Surinamese Creoles, his findings and proposals were far-reaching; he was an active participant in the overall debate on the formation of creole languages, into which he brought sound historical data as well as the theoretical tools necessary for their incorporation. For a recent observer of Creole Studies, some of the main themes in Jacques Arends’ research may now seem commonplace, but a look at the debates raging in the field in the 1980s and 1990s makes it clear that Jacques at the forefront of several theoretical and methodological advancements in the study of pidgins and creoles. This survey deals with just one of these; it is my purpose to contextualize Jacques Arends’ concept of what came to be known as ‘gradual creolization’ and link this particular line of research with several associated ideas and methods to be found in Jacques’ work.
A partir do século XVI, a língua portuguesa teve grande difusão um pouco por toda a Ásia e o Pací... more A partir do século XVI, a língua portuguesa teve grande difusão um pouco por toda a Ásia e o Pacífico, sobretudo em consequência de dinâmicas de expansão colonial mas também por outras vias, tais como a imigração. Este capítulo apresenta e ilustra a diversidade de contextos de contacto linguístico que este facto motivou, bem como os seus principais resultados: os empréstimos mútuos (sobretudo lexicais) entre o português e as línguas da região; a influência duradoura do português nas línguas de contacto posteriormente estabelecidas em contexto colonial; e o desenvolvimento de variedades asiáticas do português, muitas vezes em paralelo e articulação com o de línguas crioulas de base portuguesa, dando relevo às que subsistem, ao panorama atual dos estudos científicos sobre estas variedades e aos domínios de investigação em aberto.
Manuel des anthologies, corpus et textes romans, 2015
Os crioulos de base lexical portuguesa foram, na maioria dos casos, línguas orais até ao século X... more Os crioulos de base lexical portuguesa foram, na maioria dos casos, línguas orais até ao século XIX, quando começaram a surgir as primeiras recolhas de tradições orais, textos e traduções. Como lhes falta uma tradição escrita robusta e generalizada, a nossa recolha e descrição abrangem, além de antologias, materiais que, não sendo antologias no sentido restrito, resultam de um trabalho de compilação de fontes escritas ou orais.
Paper presented at the International Conference ‘Language contact in India: Historical, typologic... more Paper presented at the International Conference ‘Language contact in India: Historical, typological and sociolinguistic perspectives’, Deccan College, Pune, India, February 4th, 2016
Plenary talk given at the joint meeting of the SPCL and ACBLPE, Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, A... more Plenary talk given at the joint meeting of the SPCL and ACBLPE, Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, Austria, July 7th, 2015
Paper presented at the IV CILH - Congresso International de Linguística Histórica, Universidade d... more Paper presented at the IV CILH - Congresso International de Linguística Histórica, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal, July 20th, 2017.
Paper presented at the 31st South Asian Languages Analysis Roundtable (SALA-31), University of La... more Paper presented at the 31st South Asian Languages Analysis Roundtable (SALA-31), University of Lancaster, May 15th 2015
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Books by Hugo Cardoso
In South Asian nations, there is an established tradition of research and reflection on the preservation of linguistic and cultural diversity. Yet, given the enormity of the task, more needs to be done to understand the causes of linguistic endangerment and design solutions. It is the intention of this volume to contribute to the debate by focusing on specifically South Asian problems, processes and constraints, from both a synchronic and a diachronic perspective. As expected, most of the languages studied are, by most definitions, currently endangered - the type of languages that might feature in UNESCO’s Atlas. However, some authors also discuss languages whose vitality (and even dominance in some domains) seems assured in the near future. Their articles are a reminder that language endangerment is a complex and multi-faceted issue, and call for long-term approaches to language preservation. [...]
(from the "Foreword")
This study provides a linguistic account of present-day Diu Indo-Portuguese, duly embedded in its reconstructed historical and sociodemographic context, with the intention to contribute to our burgeoning understanding of the formation, development and present vitality of the contact languages of (South) Asia and elsewhere."
See: www.dutchgrammar.org
Papers by Hugo Cardoso
In South Asian nations, there is an established tradition of research and reflection on the preservation of linguistic and cultural diversity. Yet, given the enormity of the task, more needs to be done to understand the causes of linguistic endangerment and design solutions. It is the intention of this volume to contribute to the debate by focusing on specifically South Asian problems, processes and constraints, from both a synchronic and a diachronic perspective. As expected, most of the languages studied are, by most definitions, currently endangered - the type of languages that might feature in UNESCO’s Atlas. However, some authors also discuss languages whose vitality (and even dominance in some domains) seems assured in the near future. Their articles are a reminder that language endangerment is a complex and multi-faceted issue, and call for long-term approaches to language preservation. [...]
(from the "Foreword")
This study provides a linguistic account of present-day Diu Indo-Portuguese, duly embedded in its reconstructed historical and sociodemographic context, with the intention to contribute to our burgeoning understanding of the formation, development and present vitality of the contact languages of (South) Asia and elsewhere."
See: www.dutchgrammar.org
highlight significant opportunities for scholars in Goa to engage
productively in the area of Contact Linguistics, turning Goa
once again into a centre of Indo-Portuguese linguistic research.
The oral repertoire of the Norteiro communities is still vital in Diu and Daman, and further data is available in various written sources (e.g. Schuchardt 1883; Dalgado 1902-3; 1906; Moniz 1923; O Oriente Português bulletin). Its analysis reveals a number of important characteristics:
a) Linguistic heterogeneity: part of the observed formal heterogeneity is introduced by the collectors’ orthographic preferences (which often betray their linguistic attitudes), but the linguistic register of songs does vary, ranging from the various creoles of these communities to European Portuguese and variable approximations which testify to the complex sociolinguistic profile of these communities throughout their history;
b) Thematic breadth: the corpus contains both religious and profane songs, and their linguistic characteristics indicate very different social origins and formative contexts;
c) Recurrence of thematic elements: the repetition of themes and verses in the oral traditions of various territories is evident, suggesting a history of cultural exchange and population mobility;
d) Nativisation of thematic elements: recurrent themes and poetic material are often given a local flavour through the addition of strictly local referents (e.g. toponyms) and, in the process, are recombined and rearranged in a free and creative manner.
Although the territories of the former Província do Norte form a particularly close-knit unit, I will show that the links revealed by their oral repertoire extend to elsewhere in South Asia, Southeast and East Asia. It will become clear that, despite their obvious differences, the oral traditions of all Luso-Asian communities (from India to Malacca, Macau and Java) did not develop in isolation, but through a process of intense socio-cultural contact which is gaining increasing historical support.
References
DALGADO, S. R. - Dialecto indo-português de Damão. Ta-Ssi-Yang-Kuo 3 (1902) 359-367; 4 (1903) 515-523.
DALGADO, S. R. - Dialecto indo-português do Norte. Revista Lusitana 9 (1906) 142-166; 193-228.
MONIZ, A. F. - Notícias e documentos para a história de Damão – Antiga Província do Norte, vol. I.Bastorá: Tip. «Rangel», 1923.
SCHUCHARDT, H. - Kreolische Studien III. Über das Indoportugiesische von Diu. Sitzungsberichte der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Wien (philosophisch-historische Klasse) 103 (1883) 3-18."