Influence of Portuguese Language On Indian Languages

&'7 AP11925
THE JOURNAL
OF THE
BOMBAY BRANCH
OF THE
flOYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY
VOL. XXVI .
1921-23
(Nos. 74-75)
( Edited by the Honorary Secretary.)
BOMBAY:
SOCIETY'S LIBRARY, TOWN HALL.
LONDON:
PROBSTHAIN & Co.
Generated on 2014-07-26 16:18 GMT / http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015024028691

Open Access, Google-digitized / http://www.hathitrust.org/access_use#oa-google
41. GREAT RUSSEL STREET. W. C. 1.
ART. II.THE PORTUGUESE HERITAGE
TO THE EAST
OR
The Influence of Portuguese on the Languages of
the East with especial reference to the Languages
of the Bombay Presidency.
Tradition assigns 1410 as the commencement of that era of
exploration and discovery which under the guidance and the
encouragement of the famous Henry of Portugal, the Navigator,
was to render his country the foremost colonising power in
Europe.
In 1510 King Emanuel I, surnamed the Fortunate, assumed
as the result, especially, of the discovery of the sea route to
India and all that it then implied, the title, ' Lord of the Conquest,
Navigation, and Commerce of India, Ethiopia, Arabia and
Persia.'
In 1910 another Emanuel and the second of that name had
to seek safety in flight from his country and as an exile found
refuge in the land of his country's ancient ally, England. His-
tory could scarcely provide a more telling illustration of tragic
irony or of the instability of human institutions or glory.
Between the last two dates what dramas have not been acted
on the world's boards and who will deny that in many of the
acts and scenes the principal actors have been the Portuguese?
Time was when Portugal, a ruler of the water and their powers,
'held the gorgeous East in fee and was the safeguard of the
West'; to-day she is but a 'shade of what once was great.'
but were all her 'proud historic deeds forgot,' the legacy
she has left behind her, the rich treasure of her words to which
almost fifty nations in the East alone are the heirs to-day would
help to preserve alive her memory with esteem and gratitude.
Very many who are not acquainted with the past of this
Immense country will feel no little surprise to learn that from
the middle of the 16th to as late as the 18th century, Portuguese
was the lingua franca not only of India but practically of
the whole of the East. Garcia d'Orta, the famous physician

and naturalist, tells us that Husein, the heir apparent of Burhan
12 THE PORTUGUESE HERITAGE TO THE EAST.
Nizam Shah of Ahmednagar.had learnt the Portuguese language
from him and that they both carried on conversation through
this medium.1 This was somewhere about 1540. In 166S
a Portuguese priest put the following query to some French
priests who were on their way from Surat to China, " On leaving
Sural in what language will you make yourself understood?
not in Portuguese, though that is most widely known, for you
don't know it and have not learnt it. French and Latin are
totally unknown to the people of these parts." 2 Charles
Lockyer who published his ' An Account of the Trade in India,'
in 1711, remarks: "The Portuguese may justly boast they have
established a kind of lingua franca in all the sea-ports of India
of great use to other Europeans who would find it difficult in
many places to be well understood without it".3 Captain
Alexander Hamilton published his "New Account of the East
Indies " sixteen years after Lockyer and he also testifies to the
fact that "along the coast the Portuguese have left a vestige
of their language, though much corrupted, yet it is the language
that most Europeans learn first to qualify them for a general
converse with one another, as well as with the different inha-
bitants of India."4
The principal impulse that gave a start to the early
Portuguese voyages of exploration and discovery was the
outcome of an ardent desire to spread their faith among
the peoples of the new countries. They went out in quest not
so much of spices as of Christians. Every flotilla of ships that
left the Tagus for the East carried a batch of missionaries who
were not only to minister to the needs of the European popula-
tion but also to spread the gospel among the natives of the
country. The early missionaries employed only Portuguese
in their work of evangelisation ; in fact in the first heat of the
conquest of Goa so much were they seized with the frenzy of
bringing in every one to their faith that not only did they not
respect temples and other emblems of Hinduism but went to
the length of even destroying the vernacular literature of the

people from motives not unlike those that are said to have
prompted the Caliph Omar to order the destruction of the
famous library of Alexandria. Even as late as 1548 we read
of the Bishop Fr. Joao de Albuquerque going about and collect-
ing vernacular books from the Hindoo population with a view
to putting an end to them and with them as he thought to the
(iarcia d'Orta's Colloquies, Markham's Translation, coL No. 36, page 310.
2 P. Manuel Oodinho Ralacao do Novo Caminho que (ex por terra e raarvlndo
dc India para Portugal, cit. by Dr. Dalgado. Intro. Glossarlo, Vol. 1., page
xvii.
* Cit. in Intro. Hobson-Jobson, page xvii.
Lit. in Intro. Hobson-Jobson, page xvii.
THE PORTUGUESE HERITAGE TO THE EAST. 13
idolatrous worship of the people.1 It was not before long
however that the civil and ecclesiastical authorities (at this
period it is difficult to distinguish the functions of the two)
recognised that this spirit of intolerance would be fatal as much
to their purpose of spreading the gospel as of carrying on the
'work of administration, and that for the political and commercial
intercourse with the other states in India it was very necessary
to promote the study of the vernaculars. The first Provincial
Council of Goa which was held in 1567 recommends the
necessity of explaining to that part of the indigenous population
which had not come into their religious fold the Christian
doctrines in the vernacular.* The Jesuits even more than
the other religious orders applied themselves zealously to a
study of the Indian languages. Francis Xayier certainly
knew one or the other language of Southern India, most
certainly Tamil then called by the Portuguese 'Malabar';
later on he wrote and spoke Malay; he spoke Chinese or some
dialect of it, and we know that before his death he used to
preach in Japanese.3 We can well realise with what energy
these early missionaries threw themselves into the task of
mastering the languages of the East when we read of one of the
companions of St. Francis Xavier, his name Henrique Henriques,
known also as the Apostle of Comorin, having already at this
early period written an excellent grammar and vocabulary
of Tamil in which language he had also composed a large number
of other works.4 Fr. Henriques was only one of a number
of earnest religious men who at this time were devoting their
energies to master the people's languages ; quite a large number
of grammars and dictionaries and vocabularies of Konkani
are known to have been prepared at this period ; one of these
deserves especial mention, for it was the work of Thomas
Stephens of whom we can with certainty say that he was the
first Englishman to come and settle in India and to write in
an Indian tongue. Fr. Stephens wrote in Portuguese a grammar
of the Konkani language, its original title is' Arte de Lingua

Canarim'; but even more remarkable than this, is, that he
produced a Catechism of the Christian doctrine in the form
of a dialogue in Konkani. His claim to be remembered as
the greatest English poet in a foreign language rests on his
'Discurso sobre a vida de Jesu-Christo Nosso Salvador ao Mundo
dividido em dous Tratados, pelo Padre Thomaz Estevao, Inglez,
da Companhia de Jesu.' (A discourse on the life of Christ,
1 J. H. Cunha Rlvara, Unsaid Historlco da Lingua Concanlm, Nova-Goa.
pane 14.
* Ibid., page H.
A. K. Gonsalves Vlanna. in Oriente Portugci, vol. v., page 351.
.M. Cunha Kivara, op .elk; page 21.
the Saviour of the World, divided in two parts by Fr. Thomas^
Stephens, an Englishman, of the Society of Je-ûs). This work
is commonly known as the ' Parana ' and may well be said to
be the Konkani Parullse Lost and Regained in one poem.*
In 1548 Francis Xavier and his five Jesuit companions took*
over the charge of the seminary of the Holy Faith in Goa whicb
had been opened some five years earlier ; this institution w e-
oonverted into the famous Jesuit College of St. Paul in whias
were educated "in letters and good customs boys of all tcfr
Eastern nations." Here were to be met with "Canarins, the
Decanis of the North, Malabarians, Singalese, Bengalee, young
men from Pegu, the Malay Peninsula and Java, Chinese and
Abysinians."2 A veritable anthropological collection! Some
working knowledge of the languages of these diverse races on
the part of their teachers must be presumed if the pupils were
to benefit from their instructions. It goes without saying that
the object with which the youths of these distant and diverse
countries were trained was, that on the completion of their
studies they might carry the gospel into their respective-
homelands. The zeal for the cause of religion which showed
itself at the height of the Portuguese power in the East
did not last long and towards the close of the 16th century we
find that a spirit of relaxation was to be found as much among
the servants of the Crown as among the members of the
religious orders. Notwithstanding the repeated recommenda-
tions and decrees of the Archbishops and the Councils of Goa,
we read of continual complaints that the churches in Goa were
manned by religious who were not acquainted with the langu-
age of the people;3 in the spheres both of civil and religious
administration, devotion to duty had given place to worldly
and selfish ambition and love of ease, which have never been
known to be nurses of that patient labour and study which
the acquisition of any new tongue demands.
It is usual to speak of language like trade following the flag,
though in some cases notably that of the East India Company

it was the flag that followed trade ; with regard to the spread
of the Portuguese language through the length and breadth
of this peninsula and diverse other parts of Asia we are very
safe in saying that it was the cross that preceded the language;
it was not trade so much, not even the diplomatic intercourse
of the Portuguese with Indian rulers that helped the diffusion
of then language as the proseletizing efforts of the early
missionaries. Politics and trade did play a part and no
1 Ibid., paiie 83 and .1. Saldanha "The First Auulo-lndian and otlier Essays."
* Dr. Gerson da Cunha, Journal B. li. JR. A. Society, vol. xvii, page 1S2.
* J. H. da Cunha Rivura, op. tit., page 28 et seq.
unimportant one either, but not as great as the other. It is
obvious that the missionaries of the Roman communion whose
activities radiated from Goa, the capital of the Portuguese
Eastern Empire, should have carried with them everywhere
they went the influence of the Portuguese language and civilisa-
tion, but what strikes one as a fact worthy of note and of
uncommon interest is that Lutheran missionaries of the South
should have prepared themselves for their work of evangelisation
by first learning Portuguese. "The early Protestant
missionaries, Ziegenbalg, Clarke, Kiernander, Ringletaube,
and others about a hundred years ago employed it as the medium
of intercourse with the natives until they learned the vernacu-
culars."1 Da Cunha also quotes Le Bas from his 'Life of
Bishop Mittdleton.' "The Portuguese language may perhaps
be considered as one favourable medium for the diffusion of
the true religion throughout the maritime provinces of the
East." The Protestant missionaries are reported to have
occasionally preached in Portuguese.2 The reason for this
is not far to seek ; wherever the Portuguese had founded settle-
ments in the East and had carried on the work of the propaga-
tion of their faith, there grew up a nucleus of Indian Christians
who together with their former religion had shed their ancient
usages and social customs, their Hindu names and style of
dress and even in the matter of language aspired to identify
themselves with their patrons; again there were numerous
intermarriages between the Portuguese and Indians from which
was born a Euro-Asiatic stock which, as is usual, with all mixed
races felt never so happy as when in habits of life, manners and
customs it could assimilate itself to its European progenitor.
We find evidence for the above considerations in the very
startling fact of a whole people like the indigenous inhabitants
of Bombay and the-other islands around it, of Salsete, Bassein
and of Chaul, on their being received into Christianity,
repudiating their own vernacular and adopting a corrupt form
of Portuguese as their mother-tongue. These now call them-

selves East-Indians, though they were spoken of as 'Norteiros'
(Northeners) by the Portuguese with reference to their homes
being to the North of Goa,the geographic centre of their Eastern
activities. What happened in Bombay, Bassein and other
parts on the West coast happened also in other parts of India
and of the East as a whole and it is the opinion of Dr. Dalgado
that Portuguese in its pure or corrupt form was spoken through-
out India, in Malasia, Pegu, Burma, Siam, Tonquin, Cochin-
China, Gombroon in Persia, Basra and even in Mecca;
1 Dr. 0. da C'unha op. clt. pace 181.
i l)r. 8. K. Dalgado's Dbtlccto Indo-PortuguSs de Cei.>, rage xxlii.
I and it wai spoken not only by the Portuguese and their des-
cendants or the Christian converts but by Hindus, Mahomedans,
Jews, Milays, and by the European? of other nationalities.1
It requires no great perspicacity to realise that it was employed
by the non-Christians and the non-Portuguese Europeans
because Portugal had acquired a virtual monopoly of the
foreign trade of the country and had a lead of over a century
over the other Europsan nations in its connexion with the
East; its language had therefore ample time to settle down as
the principal vehiole for trade and politics and other activities
it oo;up:ed practically the same position that English does
to-day; it may bs, that it was even more diffused over parts
o! Asia excluding India, than English is at present.
As we have said, it is true, language follows the flag but
seldom do we see it survive the overthrow of the flag. Long
before the English had done so, the Dutch overthrew the
Portuguese supremacy in the East and they took possession
of quite a large number of their settlements, the most important
of which was Ceylon. After intermittent attacks on this island
which began as early as 1602 they were finally successful in
expelling the Portuguese from their last foothold in the place,
Jaffna, in 1656 and from then to 1796 when they lost the island
to the English they were in undisputed possession of it. 'During
this period of 140 years which is as long as that during which
the Portuguese held sway over it, the Dutch goaded on by
religious bigotry against Catholicism did not scruple to use
the most drastic methods not only to extirpate the religion
of the former rulers but even their language and every trace
of their influence and civilisation; decrees were issued prohi-
biting the use of any language in the settlement other than
Dutch and the native vernacular ; Dutch was the only language
taught in the schools and through the medium of Dutch ; slaves
who would not learn the language of the new conquerors had
their heads shaved and their masters were punished; but all
this was to no purpose ; all these hateful measures if they had

any effect, it was, to strengthen the loyalty of the people towards
the language of their former rulers. Sir Emerson Tennant
whose book on Ceylon (1860) is a classic sums up the situation
'briefly and does not omit to draw a moral from it.2 He
writes :" Already the language of the Dutch which they
sought to extend by penal enactments has ceased to be spoken
even by their descendants, whilst a corrupted Portuguese is
to the present day the vernacular of the lower classes in every
1 I>r. 8. K. Dalgado's Vocnbularlo, t>agc XX.
2 Sir James Emerson Trnnant, 'An Account of the Island ol Ceylon,' cit.
Encyclopedia Brltannica, Ait. Ceylon.
town of importance. As the practical and sordid government
of the Netherlands only recognised the interest of the native
population in so far as they were essential to uphold their trading
monopolies, their memory was recalled by no agreeable associa-
tions ; whilst the Portuguese who inspite of their cruelties were
identified with the people by the bond of a common faith,
excited a feeling of admiration by the boldness of their conflicts
with the Kandyans, and the chivalrous though ineffectual
defence of their beleagured fortresses. The Dutch and their
proceedings have almost .ceased to be remembered by the
lowland Singalese; but the chiefs of the South and West
perpetuate with pride the honorific title Don accorded to them
by their first European conquerors, and still prefix to their
ancient patronymics the sonorous Christian names of the
Portuguese." Sir Emerson finds reason in the bond of a
common faith and in the chivalrous courage uf the Portuguese
to explain why their language has survived their overthrow
by the Dutch; even after over a century of English rule
with its work of administration and education carried
on in English, "low Portuguese" enjoys a currency
at the present time in Ceylon. 'The Bible </ Every Lund'
quoted by Dr. Dalgado suggests a further explanation. It
says: "The Indo-Portuguese language is more or less under-
stood by all classes in the Island of Ceylon and along the whole
of the coast of India; its extreme simplicity of construction
and the ease of acquiring it has led to its being adopted
extensively as the vehicle of communication." The bond of
a common faith, the courage and chivalry of the Portuguese
and even the extreme simplicity of the language and the ease
of acquiring it, do not by themselves, in our opinion, explain
the staunch devotion to the speech of a people whose star in
the East had completely set; again it must be remembered
that 'low-Portuguese' was the dialect spoken as much by the
Portuguese eurasians as by the Dutch descendants or burghers,
and these latter did certainly not as a body profess Roman

Catholicism; like their Lutheran colleagues in the South of
India the Protestant missions in Ceylon, we are told, employed
Portuguese for preaching and propaganda work.1 What
then was it that made the people cherish the memory and the
language of their one-time European masters? to a large
extent the religious tie and to some extent the other facts
which have been suggested above but as important as any of
these, if not more so, was the doctrine of social and political \
equality which the Portuguese preached to the peoples of the |
East and which they never shirked carrying out in practice.
i Dr. S. R. Dolgado's Indo-PortiiguSs <le CollKo, page xxlti.
We have a living proof of their sincerity in respect of this prin-
ciple in their not disdaining to intermarry with the people
of the land wherein they settled. It was the deliberate and
openly avowed object of the generous and lofty-souled early
Portuguese rulers to give to the natives of their Eastern
dominions the same benefits and privileges in respect of religious
needs, social status or political rights in the possession of which
they justly prided themselves. Even at the present day one
of the most abiding as it certainly is, one of the most glorious
ties that exist between Portugal and her colonies is the recogni-
tion not only in legal statutes but one* which has been translated
into every day practice of the social and political equality
without any restriction whatsoever between themselves and
their colonials, be they Hindoos, Chinese or Africans. It must
be confessed that this remains as yet a desideratum with regard
to the richer and more flourishing possessions of other powers.
The Portuguese never looked upon their dominions as points
d'appui for commsreial or other exploitation ; far from it, their
settlements were to them so many patches of Portugal sown
abroad for her glory in different climes and among different
peoples and colours and races but withal not on that account
less Portuguese in heart and spirit. It is this same feeling which
accounts for the faot that a Portuguese born in India or Africa
of European parents does not disdain to call himself an Indian
or an African. To the East which had known and felt the
distance that had separated the ruling classes from the ruled
the new outlook was a veritable revelation; to be given, and
the lowliest among them the same privileges and rights as the
conquerors, and, at the same time to realise that the masters
did not deem it below their dignity to identify themselves with
their subjeots, must have acted as an eye-opener which was
bound to affect the very depths of their nature.
History like life is full of paradoxes ; we have a counterpart
of the Dutch intolerance in Ceylon in the early bigotry of the
Portuguese in Goa; both failed to achieve their purpose; all

the Dutch penal enaotments could not eliminate the
Portuguese influence from Ceylon and all the Portuguese
persecution of the Hindus of Goa, the burning of
their temple3 and their books did not make them
give up the use of their vernacular. We have the paradoxical
phenomena of whole Christian populations along the coast of
India, those of Cochin, Negapatam, Calcutta, Bombay
Salsette, Bas3ein, Chaul, of Ceylon, and of many other parts
of Asia giving up their mother tongue and succumbing to the
seductions of the language of Camoens and Albuquerque, and
on the other hand, the inhabitants of Goa, the capital of their
Eastern dominions refusing in spite of civil and ecclesiastical
threats to adopt the language of their conquerors as their own;
to this day Konkani which some philologists believe is the same
as the now extinct Saraswati of Tirhoot is the vernacular of
the people of Goa.
We have said that Portuguese was the language of diplomacy
in negotiating with the Indian rulers ; as a consequence of this
it might be presumed that some scholars attached to the Indian
courts would think it desirable to acquire a correct and even
a literary knowledge of the language. In the lists of Portu-
guese manuscripts in the British Museum compiled by Frederico
Francisco de La Figaniere and published in 1853 is mentioned
Da8tan Masih, that is 'The History of Christ' translated intoi
Persian from a Portuguese work of Fr. Jeronymo Xavier.l
the nephew of St. Francis Xavier; this translation was made byl
Abdul Senarim Kafen of Lahore in 1617.1 This fact lends'
support to our assumption and leads us to conclude that there'
must have been individuals who either as the result of official
requirements or of literary and linguistic tastes were in the habit
of acquiring a knowledge of Portuguese and that one of them
at any rate had studied it well enough to be able to translate
works from it into another language. The Italian traveller
Pietro Delia Valle was a member of the party of Joao Fernandes
LeitaS who was sent on an embassy from Goa to the Court of
Venctapa Naique, the Ruler of South Kanara ; he mentions one
Vitola Sinay who was Venctapa's representative for many years
in Goa as having acted as an interpreter on this occasion and as
having " spoken to the Portuguese ambassador and the Indian
ruler alternately."2 This was in November 1623. The
Portuguese representative at the Court of the Peshwa in Poona
in 1788 was one Narayana Sinay Dumo and as is but natural,
correspondence between him and his government was carried
on in Portuguese3. All this goes to show that there were
non-Christians who owing to the exigencies of their service
acquired a knowledge of the official language of the government

of Goa. Again there were Moors whom trade brought to India
and some of them if not all could speak either Castilian or
Portuguese. Vasco de Gama's party on the occasion of its
first landing in Calicut is reported to have been accosted by a
Moor from Tunis much to their astonishment with the words
*A1 Diablo! que te doy! Quiente trouxe oa' (The Devil take
1 J. A. Ismael Graclas, Uma Dona Portugucia na Corte do Grlo Mogul, Nova
Goa, 1907, oage 198.
2 J. A, I-imael Granias, A India cm 1C23-1B24, Oriente PortuguSi, Nova-Goa,
vol. I., page 395.
8 J. H. da C'unha Rivara, A ConjuracEo em Ooa, Nova-Goa. 1875; page 34.
you! whoever brought you here).1 Garcia da Orta also
mentions a very rich Moor, a native of Tripoli in Barbary, who
could talk Portuguese. He met him at Cambay and helped to
cure his son of a fever.2
We have said that Portuguese was the language of diplomacy
in India and it was employed not only by the Portuguese but
also by the representatives of other European powers. Clive,
the founder of the British Empire in India, used it as his only
means of communication with the Indian princes.3
The language of Camoens with the aid of which it was possible
for one to make himself understood from Guzerat to Comorin
and from Ormuz to Malacca and even China has yielded place
to the language of Shakespeare, it is no longer the lingua jranca
of the East, its dialects some of them like that of the Indo-
Portuguese of Negapatam are already extinct, others like that
spoken by the Portuguese descendants in Calcutta are in articvio
morli<, while it may well be that yet others like the Portuguese
dialect of the East-Indians in Bombay, Bassein, etc., which
is slowly but steadily giving place to English shall have after
the lapse of ages entirely disappeared. But though Portuguese
is no longer to-day the currency of the East and the radius of
its old circulation has been considerably reduced, it has left
behind not a few tokens to testify to the influence which both
itself and its nation exercised over a large part of the East in
the past. In fifty languages and dialects of Asia are these
tokens to be met with ; many of them have gone through such
a process of attrition that the impression of the effigy they bore
has been well nigh obliterated and the task of tracing them
back to the mint from which they were originally issued is
no easy one. Dr. Gei'son da Cunha in concluding his series on
Ijvk>-Pnrlng>iese Numismatics remarks: 'Of the once vast
dominion of the Portuguese in the East all monuments whether
edifices or archives are rapidly disappearing. The only
documents that will longer defy the action of time are coins.*'
But when coins too shall have perished then the verbal tokens

which have enriched the languages of the East shall still
continue to exist and stand as witnesses to the Portuguese
domination and influence of these parts in the past.
We have said that Goa was the capital of the Portuguese
dominions in the East and the centre from which radiated all
their activities; we have also referred to the fact that it resolutely
i Jose Augusto Alves Kocadas, Portugal perantc o Mundo, Orients Fortuguez,
vol. i, page 65.
- Garcia da Orta op clt., page 310.
3 Cit. in da Cunha's Indo Portuguese Xumirmatics, Art, JIT. page 72, In Journal
B. B. H. A S., vol. xvi.
set its face against accepting Portuguese as its vernacular,
but the rule of oeer four hundred years had perforce to leave
some impress on th? language of the people; in fact, Konkani,
the mother tongue of the Goans is indebted more than any
other Indian language for a very large number of Portuguese
words and this is quite natural in view of the close religious,
social and administrative ties that have existed between these
two peoples.
The area which is comprehended under the name
of Goa has on one of its confines the Mahratti and on
the other the Canarese speaking populations. Mahratti was
also the language spoken by the Christian inhabitants of
Bombay, Bassein, Salsette, Chaul, Thana before they adopted
Portuguese as their vernacular and also by the people who
lived on the outskirts of these settlements, and, the Portuguese
influence on Mahratti must in a great measure have proceeded
from these respective foci of then activities. There were quite
a large number of Goan officers who spoke Portuguese serving
in the Mahratta. army and there used to be missionaries in
Poona to minister to the religious needs of these as o: other
Christians who were settled there, and, it might well be that
some of the words made their way into Mahratti through their
ageney.
From the earliest times the people of Goa were in
trade relation with the Ghauts, especially with cities like
Belgaum, Khanapur, etc., where Canarese is the vernacular;
this fact combined with the contiguity of Konkan and Kanara
and the existence of Portuguese missionary settlements in
the latter district must have been favourable to linguistic
intercourse.
Guzerat had from a very early date come into contact
with the Portuguese; it is not generally known that it
was a Guzerati Mohammedan of Cambay, Davane, his name,
who met Vasco de Gama's fleet on the Mocambique coast and
furnished the great navigator with detailed information regard-

ing the riches of his country, the vast possibilities for trade it
offered and the power of its sovereign.1 Surat, Broach and
Cambay were not unknown to Portuguese shipping; what is
more, Damaun and Diu, the only two landmarks of their former
influence in these parts which still belong to them have Guzerati
for their vernacular ; the influx of Portuguese words into
Guzerati cannot therefore be a matter for surprise.
1 I.endas da India, clt. l>y Jeronyino Quadros in'Portugal em Guzerato' Orientv
l'ortuguez vol, viii, page 26.
Hindustani or Urdu too, thanks to its wonderful
powers of absorption, has found place for not a few
Portuguese words. The . Government of Goa especially
during the reigns of Akbar and his successors, had
relations of an intimate nature with the Mogul Court ; many
European and Portuguese families were settled at Agra
in Akbar s reign, and missionaries and diplomatic representa-
tives used to pass to and for between Goa and Delhi';
this may in some measure explain the influence of Portuguese
on Hindustani.
From a detailed examination of the words that have been
taken over into all the four languages, viz., Mahratti, Guzerati,
Canarese and Hindustani we shall see how the same vocable
has not in every case been introduced into all the four languages;
some that have been borrowed by one or more have not been
by another. It is obvious that the names of the flora and
the fauna which the Portuguese introduced into this country
froni their possessions in other parts of the world principally
South America, parts of Africa and even other places in Asia
were adopted by almost all the Indian languages. Many
articles which were in use among Europeans were introduced
for the first time into India and other parts of Asia and the
names of these were borrowed by the people when they learnt
to appreciate then- usefulness; it is quite conceivable that
among those who did not know or find any use for a particular
object, its name does not figure in then- language. As an
instance armaria, mesa, satdo, bacia, labaco and many
others have under different forms been taken over not only
in the four languages we have referred to above but practically
in all the Indian languages and dialects. Among other words
introduced were terms ecclesiastical; the currency of these
is for the most part among the Indian Christians, principally
those who were the converts of Portuguese missionary enterprise.
Some few expressions like igreja and nntal have however
under various forms been taken over into several of the Indian

| languages. Portuguese nautical terms are to be found in all
! the four languages we have mentioned above but they are
I appropriated principally by the Hindustani spoken, by the
lascars or khalasis and therefore known as 'lascari-Hindustani.'
It is obvious that the activity of the Portuguese in the Indian
seas should have furnished to the indigenous sea-faring class
many terms in respect of their art; these terms have however
undergone such transformation that it requires great perspi-
cacity to be able to discover their original forms. Who would
1 J. A. I9tnael Gracias, I'm Dona Portugueza na corte do Grio Mogol, Nova-
Goa, 1907, page 196.
at once be able to identify the ariya or ala of the Indian
khalasi with the Portuguese arreur (to lower) and alar
(to hoist)? Many English nautical terms are similarly being ^ \
absorbed by the same class at the present time ; we all know
that tan stun which one hears as a word of command from
the bridge of the ferry boats in Bombay is no other than 'turn
astern' only much disguised. Then we have the names of (
instruments of war and firearms for which many languages
are indebted to the Portuguese; bomba (a cannon ball)
became in Hindustani bam ka gula and pistola and
cartuchos are found with slight modifications in all the four'
languages.
But the largest number of words that were absorbed have )
reference to domestic and social life and they are useful in
helping us to estimate at its proper value the part that Portugal
played in unfolding the West to the East; terms like alfinete
(pin), achar (pickle), Liscoito (biscuit), camisa (shirt), estirar
(to iron clothes), sabdo (soap), sorte (lottery) and several others
belong to this class.
The Portuguese have not been known to be indifferent to
the joys of good living and they seem to have been responsible
for introducing many a term attesting to their skill in confec-
tionery and preserve-making like achar, apa, pad, biscoito;
they certainly were the first to introduce the European culinary
art into India; their influence in the sphere of clothing and
dress is not inconsiderable, alfinete, botdo, camisa, toalha,
saia, are some of the words in this domain that we owe to them;
a few professional names are undoubtedly of Portuguese origin,
aya from Portuguese 'aia' (dry-nurse) karnail is the port,
'coronel' (colonel), kaptan from 'capitao' (captain), padre, and
inestari or mistri from padre'(priest)and mestre (master) are some
oTtheslT Wefhave already referred to the wealth of new names
that India owes to the Portuguese in the domain of natural
history; to mention only a few of them, 'abobora ' (cucurbita
pepo, gourd) gives to Mahratti hlwpla with all its figurative

compounds such as bhompIdsiUi, a slovenly workman and
bhompla-devatd a tomboy, a hoyden ; it is believed that both
the plant and its name were introduced into the Konkan by
the Portuguese. 'Ananas ' the plant and its name were like-
wise brought by them to India from America; kobi or gobi,\
popaya or papaya, tamJbaku or tamaku, are other names that
attest to their Portuguese originals, couve (cabbage), papaia,
and tabaco (tobacco). It does not want much discernment
to recognise in the aphus which is so sedulously hawked in
the streets of Bombay the 'afonsa ' (mango) of the Portuguese.
Commerce owes terms like Warn or nilam ; gudatnv or g-jdarn
to 'leilao (auction-sale) and gudao (store-house); the former
is a Portuguese word but the latter was first imported by them
into their own language from the Malay Peninsula where its
original exists as 'gadong or gadong ' and then given to India.
We shall now proceed to make out a list of the words that
have been taken into all the four languages, Mahratti, Guzerati,
Canarese and Hindustani and show what transformations they
have undergone in their passage to each of the said languages.
Ananas (pine-apple) is in Mahr. ananas, in Can. ananasu,
in Guz. anenas or annas and in Hind, ananas.
Armaria (a cup-board or a ward-robe) in Mahr. and Guz.
have assumed the form 'armari ' and in Can. and
Hind, almari; in Can. the form 'almaru' is also
known.
Arrdtel (a pound avoirdupois) Mahr. Guz. Hind, ratal ; Can.
ratalu. The vernacular is xer. The Portuguese them-
selves derived the word from the Arabic 'rati or rfl.'
Bacia (a dinner plate; a dish), this is no doubt the original of
'basi' in all the four languages; the vernacular is
'basan.'
> Batata (potato) Mah. Guz. and Can. 'batata ' : the vernacular
term as also the Hind, is ' alu ' from the Sanskrit. What
we call the sweet potato (convolvulus batatas) became
known many years in Europe before the potato
(solatium tuberosum) and the latter has robbed the
former of its name. The sweet potato was introduced
into India by the Portuguese.
< Biscoito (biscuit) ; in all the four languages we find the form
'biskut"; in the early part of their connexion with
India we find references to the Portuguese having
made it here.
Bomba (water pump), in Mah. Guz. and Hind. 'Bamb'
in Can. 'bambu.'
Buraco (hole) ; it is curious that Mah. and Guz. should have

derived from it 'burakh ' and Can. 'biraku. biriku,'
and more curious still that the Hind 'surakh ' with a
different origin should have the same meaning.
Chaves (key) has become in Mah. tsavi, in Guz. and Can.
chavi and Hind, chavi, chabhi. Here again it is
difficult to understand why the foreign term should
have been preferred to the vernacular 'kili' and
the Persian ' kunzi,' also in vogue.
Couve (cabbage) become in Mah. kob, kobi, koi ; in Guz. kobi,
and in Hind, we have the variants, kobi, gobi, gobhi.
Camisa (shirt) is in Mah. and Guz. khamis, Can. kamisu
and Hind, qamis and qamij.
Cornel (colonel) has become in Mah. and Guz. karnel, in Hind,
karnail and Can. karnelu; it is not impossible that
in some of the languages the English 'colonel' may
have been the original of the Indian word.
JSstirar (to iron clothes) gives to Mah. istri (an iron) and istri
karnem (to iron linen); the Guz. istri, astri, astari
and the Hind, istri all have the same origin. This
leads one to enquire whether starching and ironing
was known to the people of India before the Portu-
guese came here, or whether it was introduced by them.
Jogar (to play cards or to play with dice); this is found
in Mah. in the form jugar, jugari (gambler), in Guz.
as jugar, jugaru, juvem and juo, in Hind, as jua and
in Can. as jugaru. '' Games of chance'' says Dr.
Dalgado, "was the social recreation in India from
early Vedic times and drew the ire of moralists. Manu
prohibited dice even as a pastime and sanctioned
corporal punishment for the offender." To explain
the adoption of the Port, term in the above four
languages he presumes that the Portuguese and their
descendants revived the game of dice which had long
fallen into disuse. We know from the accounts of
travellers how the Portuguese in India were passio-
nately fond of gambling.
Leildo (auction sale) is in Mah. and Guz. lilam, nilam; in
Mah. there is also the form lilamb; in Hind, it became
nilam' and nilam and in Can. leylam, lilamu, yalam,
and yelamu. There was evidently a good deal of

auctioneering in Goa. Linschoten, the Dutch traveller,
sketched from life a busy auction scene in the city
in 1598; it was engraved by one Johannes a Dorre-
chum and a print from this accompanies the traveller's
work ; it is entitled ' 0 Leilao que se faz cade dia pela
menhana Rua direitana Cidade de Goa'; this picture,
as nothing will, gives an idea of how busy thecity must
have been before its decline began.
Mesa (table) in Man. and Guz. is mej, in Hind, mej and mez.
and in Can. meju.
Meslre (master) in Mah. mestari and niest, in Guz., mistri
and mistari (mason), in Hind, mistri (a master crafts-
man, in Can. mestre (a carpenter, a mason).
Molesworth remarks with regard to mestari and mestri
in Mah. that "it is a designation of honor for a head-
smith or carpenter or mason or armourer; also the
man especially a Portuguese who makes up the bread
in a bakeryapplied often to a superintendent;
generally applied further out of abounding courtesy
to Portuguese servants especially cooks." By Por-
tuguese he evidently means Goans.
Padre (priest) Mah. Guz. Hind, padri; Can. padri and-
padaii.
Paga (pay) lias become pag and pagar in Mah. and in-
Guz. the latter form is used for the substantive, but
'to pay is pagar apvo or karvo ; the term is also used
in Low-Hindustani though the proper word used in.
Xorthern India is ' talab.'
Papaia (carica papaya) is in Mah. popay and popaya, in,
Guz. papaia and the same in Hind ; in Can. it is called
parangi hannu,' i.e., Portuguese fruit, which attests
to its foreign origin.
\ Pera (guava). This is a case where the vernacular term
exists side by side with the foreign and both are in-
vogue. 'Pera' which really is the pear was the name
given to the guava tree (psidium guyava) because
of the resemblance of the fruit to the pears of Europe.
In Mah. it has become 'peru ' and is as much used as
'jamb ' the vernacular term for it; in Guz. 'jam and.
jamphal' are more in vogue than 'per and perum'
which forms however are also used. In Can. the fruit is
known as 'perla hannu ' and the tree as 'perla mara.'
It is curious to note that the Hind, for guava 'amrut'

is the same as the Persian for 'pear.' It is believed
that the plant was most probably introduced from.
Mexico by the Portuguese.
Pipa (barrel) in Mah. has changed into ' pip and pimp '; in.
Guz. it is pip and in Hind, pipa; in Can. there are tho
forms pipe, pipai, pipayi.
( THE PORTUGUESE HERITAGE TO THE EAST. 27
yL Sabrlo (soap). This is a word that has been introduced into
almost every conceivable language or dialect of the
East and hence naturally leads one to enquire whether
soap as we know it was in use before the arrival of
the Portuguese; there is evidenoe to show that the
people employed soap-nuts, the nuts of the "sabindus
trifoHatus'' in ancient India for washing clothes, but
we cannot claim to know of any reference that points
to the existence of the sort of composition that we
call ' soap.' In Mali, we find the forms sabu and sa bun
and in Guz. sabu, Hind, sabun, saban and in (Jan.
sabbu and sabunu.
Tabaco (tobacco). Tobaoco was most probably introduced
by the Portuguese into India. From a quotation
in Hobson-Jobson it appears that it became known
for the first time to the Moghul Court about the year
1604 and that thereafter the custom spread very
rapidly in India. In Mah. we have the forms
tambaku and tamaku; in Guz. tambaku, tambakum
and tamaku; in Hindi, tambaku and tamaku and in
Can. tambaku. The Portuguese term which is the
name of the leaf in Mexico has been adopted in almost
all Indian vernaculars; but it is surprising that it
should not have been taken over into Konkani, the
vernacular of Goa, which calls it by the generic name
'pan' (leaf) and to distinguish it from betel-leaf,
'khavunchem pan' (the eating leaf) at times speaks
of it as 'odhchem pan ' (the smokers' leaf).
"V- Varanda (verandah). Mah. has varand, varanda and
varandi; Guz., varand6 Hind, baranda and Can.
varanda. This is a word the origin of which has
been the subject of much controversy. Some derive
it from the Sanskrit 'varanda' but against this
view is the fact that this term has never yet been
found in any known Sanskrit work or manuscript up

to the present time; there are others who think that
the Persian 'baramada ' from bar=from above, and
amada=coming, and therefore equivalent to coming
from above or a projection, is the origin of the word.
The third view is that it is the Port, varanda; it is
found used by Port, writers and especially travellers to
the East as early as the last decade of the 15th
century; those that use it do not give any explanation
of the term which they would have done had they
borrowedit from the East as was their invariable prac-
tice. Dr. Dalgado has most carefully and minutely
examined the evidence for and against the Port, origin
of the word and he comes to a conclusion which agrees
with Yule and Burnell's that such of the Indian
languages as have adopted it owe it to the Portuguese -
Dr. Murray derives the English word from the Port.
We shall now proceed to give a list of words which have
ibeen taken over by one or more of the four languages we have

.mentioned but not by all of them.
fe
"
'
Guserali.
boyu and boyum
kaphlad
japhran
..
..
..
achar (vem. achar
aphds aphus
baldi
bank
barkas
bateld
bhopla, bhompla
aya
bilimbi & bimbla
Mahratli.
(bimblem, fruit)
lonchem).
,..
..
..
..

..
barkata
aya
baldi
bank
barkin
batela
Boiao (porcelain jar) |
Barquinha (a small boat)
Batel (a boat used in Western
Porlitgm-se.
Ab6bora (a gourd)
Acafelar (to plaster)
Acafrao (saffron)
Ata (anona squamosa)
Balsamo (balsam)
Barca9a, (a big bark)
Barqueta (a vessel)
Boringela (brinjal)
Bilimbim (Averrhoa
Achar (pickle)
Afonsa (mango)
Alfinete (pin)
Balde (bucket)
Banco (bench)
Boia (life-buoy)
Aia (ayah)
India).
bilimbi)
Canarese.
-c
>
>
rt
Hindustani.
kalpatti & kala-
patiya.
kamara, kamera
and kam'ra.
bani'ka gula
kaptan
kartus
b6tam.
bucb
Cttnarese.
kaphri
surval, suravala
Gvzerati.
kaju & kaj um
kaptan and
kapattan.
biich
..
kartus
kolero

gaja
(vern. gundi)
kampti (field of
battle.)
kaj (vern. birdem)
ehep6m (a mili-
tary hat or cap)
Mahralli.
butavem
buz
kabay
kazu
lumtrat
Portuguese.
Caju (anicardium occi-
Ceroilas (sleeping pant)
Bomba (cannon ball)
Calafate (a caulker)
Camara ( a room)
Capitao (captain)
Cartucho (cartridge)
Casa (button-hole)
J (Jontrato (contract)
Campo (a plain)
Colcra (cholera)
Botao (button)
Bucha (cork)
Cabaia (tunic)
Cafre (negro)
dentale)
Gotonia (a silk and cot-
ton fabric)
Cunha (wedge)
Custar (to cost, suffer)
Damasco (damask)
Docc (sweets)
Escrit6rio (a writing desk)
Espada (sword)
Esponja (sponge)
Falto (wanting)
Fama (report)
Fit a (ribbon)
Fazendeiro (a landowner)
Fidalgo (iidalgo)
Forma (mould)
Fragata (frigate)
Gamela (a shallow vessel
from which soldiers ate
their food in com-
mon.)
Granada (grenade)
Gudao (godown)
Hospital (hospital)
Igreja (church)
kutni
kust honem (to be
grieved),
humas
haltu (extra)
(hit andphfnt
phajindar (vern.
malkar).
>hidalkhor
phargad
âmel (a mason's
mortar basin)

;arnal (rocket)
iûdamv
dhumas and
dumas
iskotard
phaltu (extra)
pham' (remem-
brance)
phit and phint
pharmd; pharm
damasu
dose (cake)
spanju
gailangu
aspatri
kuniyafi, kunya
is pat
is pan j and isf an j.
phaltu (extra)
fita, phita
farma
garnal
god am'
girja
ft
-5
ts
ft
>
ft
ft
Hindustani.
langiieha (vern.
kulma)
martil, martol,
..
..
martaul,
,.
Canarcse.
angrezi
mastul
mastisa
pagar
pav-roti
peru
..
..
..
..
..

angrexand angreji
lantaru
pingani
papoFU
pen (sisapen, is
lead pencil)
Guzcrati.
lavad
natal
pagar
pasum
pamu, paum
panchatkar)
natal & nat alem
pasar (to walk up
and down.)
Mahratti.
lavad (vern.
pidrel (vern.
gaundi)
ingle ji
..
pag, pagar,
..
pen
>,
Pagina (page of a book)
Pedreiro (a quarry man)
Portuguese.
Ingles (the English)
Lantema (lantern)
co
to
pistol, pistul,
paranchi (vern.
purav, purava
rabak, rabab
pikaniv
mala)
.,
,.
a,
..
..
parat
rejim
rip
sodti

Rabeca (rebeck or fiddle)
Ripa (thin strips of tim-
Picao (mason's pick)
Eenda (hire or rent)
Rial (money; unit of
ber used for roofing)
Sorte (a lottery ticket)
Prancha (builder's
Pro vat (to prove)
Keceibo (receipt)
Port, currency)
Tesouraria (a safe)
^ w Pires (saucer)
Pis tola (pistol)
scaffolding)
Preso (arrested)
Prova (proof)
Pvesma (ream)
Ronda (patrol)
Salada (salad)
Sapato (shoes)
Toalha (towel)
Prato (dish)
Saia (skirt)
Sofa (sofa)
pistol,
paranch
parej (parej kar-
vumsto arrest)
pur&vo
purvar (purvar
karvum.)
rasid
rent
to
Hi
4-
>
Hindustani.
bindalu
"
turanj
Canarese.
bijagri
adhikarirgaoler)
varu
majagarem, aja-
garum & mis ja-
garum.
Guzeratti.
turang (turang-
turanj
var
turanj, toranjan,
bijagrem, bijogri
Mahratti.
mm
turung
turn bar
Vinho de alhos (a dish;

Anglo-Indian vindalo)
Verruma (brace or auger)
Tumor (swelling caused
Portuguese.
Vara (yard-measure)
Toronja (pumelo)
.Fronco (lock-up)
by contusion)
Visagra (hinge)
Some of the words in our list like achar, arralel, limao, gitdan
are etymologically of Eastern origin; achar is Persian, rail
or ritl which is the original of 'arratel ' is Arabic ; the Arabic
leimun is responsible for the Port, limao and as we have already:
said 'gudao ' is a corruption of the Malay gadcng or godong;^
but when we set them down as Portuguese terms what we
mean is, that the Portuguese had appropriated them either
during their secular connexion with the Moors in Europe
or during their activities in the East and that it was
through their agency they were introduced into the Indian
languages.
It remains for me now to acknowledge my great and grateful
debt to, Monsignor Dr. S. Rodolfo Dalgado's Influencia do
Vocabvldrio PMitguia em lAnguas Asidlicas (abrangendo
c&rca de cinquenta idiomas), 1912" (The Influence of Por-
tuguese on Asiatic Languages almost fifty in number). The
student who wishes to study from a scientific and philological
standpoint the process by which the gradual transplantation
of the exotic words on Asiatic soil was effected, will find the
introduction to this great work of absorbing interest. The
book which is published by the University Press, Coimbra, and
brought out under the auspices of the Academy of Sciences,
Lisbon, is in Portuguese, a language unknown to the large
majority of scholars in India; I am sure that on this very
account a few brief remarks on the character of this work as
well as on the career and achievements of the indefatigable
orientalist and philologist, its author, will not be out of
place.
Monsignor Dr. Dalgado is a native of India, being born in
Assagao, Goa, in 1855; he studied for Holy Orders and was
ordained priest from the Seminary of Rachol, Goa ; he subse-
quently went to Rome and joined the famous University
of St. Apolinarius; here he received the Dcctorate in Canon
and Roman Law; not much after he passed the examination
for the Degree of Doctor in Divinity and was created a Monsignor

by the then reigning Pope Leo XIII. In 1884 he returned to
Goa and worked for several years, both there and in the
missions, occupying important ecclesiastical positions ; in quick
succession he was the Vicar-General of Ceylon, Bengal and
ultimately of Canara. In 1895 he returned to Portugal and
at the request and at the cost of the Portuguese Goveinment
brought out a Dictionary of the Portuguese-Ccncani Languages.
In 1907 he was appointed a Professor of Sanskiit which he had
found time to study duiing his missionary labtun in India.
In 1911 he was elected a member of the L;tbcn Academy of
Sciences and in 1917 the degree of Doctor of Literature was
oonferred upon him. The following is a list of his published
works :
Concani-Portuguese Dictionary, Bombay, 1913, 562 pages.
Hitopadexa or Useful Instruction, being a translation into
Portuguez from the Sanskrit original. Lisbon 1897,
292 pages.
The Indo-Portuguese Dialect of Ceylon. Lisbon 1900,
262 pages.
The Indo-Portuguese Dialed ofOoa. Oporto 1900.
The Indo-Portuguese Dialect of Damiun. Lisbon 1905.
The Portuguese-Concani Dictionary,lAsbon 1903, 9)6 pages.
/ The Indo-Portuguese Dialed of Bombay a<id its suburbs,
1906.
The Influence of Portuguese on Asiatic Languages, etc, 1913.
Contributions towards Luso -Oriental Lexicology. 1916,
198 pages.
The History of Nala and Dxmayanli, translation, 1916,
155 pages.
r-y. The Indo-Portuguese Dialect of Negipatam, 1917.
A, Ooncalves Viana and Portuguese Lexicology with regard
to words of Asiatic-African origin, 1917.
The Glossary, Luso-Asiatic Vol. I, 1919, pages, 534.
The Glossary, Luso-Asiatic Vol. II, 1921, pages, 580.
Dr. Dalgado's opus magnum is his Olossario, Luso-Asiatiw,
the second volume of which appeared only in April this year.
It is the complement to the great work the Vocabulario, our
indebtedness to which in the preparation of this paper we have
already acknowledged. Whilst the Vocabulario treats of
the influence of Portuguese on the languages o! Asia the
Glossary investigates into and finds abundant evidence of the
influenca of Asiatio languages on Portuguese and through it
on other European Ian ;ua?es. Dr. Dalgado's innate sense
of malesty is evidently responsible for titles for his two most
important works from which it would be diffisult to realise

the maga'tude of the service he has rendered to scholarship.
The Vocxbulario has msant the patient wading through the
THE PORTTGUESE HERITAGE TO THE EAST. 37
dictionaries and vocabularies of over fifty tongues and dialects,
always on the keen look out to identify and bring back to the
true fold the numerous Portuguese words which had found a
home not only among well known peoples and countries such
as the Mahratti, Guzerati, Canarcse, Telugu, etc., speaking
populations and in China, Japan, Persia, Arabia, Ceylon and
other centres of ancient civilisations, but even such as had
strayed into remote and little known tracts where are spoken
Tibetan, Garo, Khasi, Batak, Balinese, Nicobarese, Teto Galoli
Achinese and several other little known dialects.
Mr. Longvorth Dames, the Vice-President of this Society, has
very recently published a critical study of the Olossario in the \
Society's Journal in London. What Hobson-Jobson is t91
English, the Glossary is to Portuguese; no student of Indian \
or for that matter Eastern history can afford to ignore it ; in
the light of the investigations of the learned author many
notions with regard to the origin and meaning of words and
names will have to be revised and corrected. It will be
possible to realise the monumental character of the work which
must have been years in preparation when one notes that the
bibliography covers over five hundred works, many of them
running into several volumes; it includes practically every
known work in Portuguese giving an account of or treating
of the East and, as is well known the Portuguese chroniclers
in the hey-day of their country's history were not few and far
between; the author has gone through most of the available
accounts of English, French, Dutch and Italian travellers to
the East and citations from Chinese, Arabian and Persian sources
are also occasionally met with in the book; the patience and
industry with which every change that has taken place in a
word during the process of its adoption into Portuguese has
been registered in its chronological sequence, together with
the relative citations from the various writers, is nothing
short of the marvellous. To take only one instance, the
Portuguese 'betele, betel, betle, betere, betre,' all variants of

the Malayalum ' ' vetila ' and the original of the English ' betel'
(piper betle) have been traced right down from the year 1500
when the form 'betele,' first figures in an account of the
voyages of Pedro Alvares Cabral to 1908 when he quotes Watt's
Commercial Products of India; during this long survey which
covers four centuries the orthographic forms of the word are
not uniform and the author quotes 48 different passages of as
many dates and from as many authors, the majority of whom
are Portuguese, but there are others who wrote in Italian,
French, Latin and English. As Mr. Longworth Dames observes
Dr. Dalgado's Glossary is not only a Portuguese Hobson-
38 THE PORTCTGTJESE HERITAGE TO THE EAST.
Jobson but something more besides because of the peculiar
position which the Portuguese language occupies in its relation
to the East, a relation very different from that of other European
languages. The Portuguese were the first to give new terms
to and likewise the first to borrow new terms from the East:
quite a large number of these latter were adopted by the French
and the English, but the way in which they at times transfigured
the terms whilst taking them over into their respective languages
provides some of the humour of philology. The Portuguese
'pau d' aguila, the name of an aromatic wood, 'aguila ' being
the Malayalum 'agil,' which has nothing to do with 'eagle'
became in English 'eagle wood ' and in French ' bois d ' aigle ';
bicho-de-mar, the literal meaning of which is a 'sea-slug'
was converted into the meaningless 'beech de mer ' in English,
and in French into 'beche de mer ' ; the Portuguese have all
along displayed a fondness for giving a nasal termination to
Indian words or place names; they changed the Konkani
'morxi' or 'modxi' which means gastric derangement
especially in the case of children, into 'mordexim' and by a
sort of euphemism employed it to denote the cholera morbus
or as Fryer says ' a vomiting with a looseness ' ; the transforma-
tion of 'morxi' into 'mordexim ' is excusable but what will
one say to the French conversion of the latter into 'mort-
de-chien,' and the English into 'mordisheen and mordechine.'
The portly double columned edifice which was quaintly
named Hobson-Jobson had been slowly upreared by the
common interest and the joint labours of Yule and Burnell;
it is true that partly owing to the death of the latter in 1882
four years before their joint enterprise was presented to the
world and partly owing to other reasons the larger part of the
burden, in fact seven tenths of it, fell on the shoulders of Yule
but even then it must have afforded him some relief to have
received the benefit of suggestions, guidance, and above all
encouragement which a work of such great proportions and
sustained interest requires and which only a fellow collaborator

can supply. Dr. Dalgado's has been a single handed fight
against odds which might have awed any man, and when we
know how precarious has been the state of his health, a fact
to which he will not so much as even dimly refer to in the
Preface to his work, and how during the time the book has
been in preparation and in the press he has had to submit to
two surgical operations on two different occasions which have
resulted in the amputation of both his legs, our admiration for
his achievement can only be boundless. The greater part
of the book has been written in a invalid's chair ; in the midst
of his physical desolation, his most constant companions have
THE PORTUGUESE HEEITAGE TO THE EAST. 39
been the Portuguese Chroniclers and the dictionaries of the
languages of the East, which he loves so dearly. We have
said that the Portuguese have played a role in Indian history \
so different from that of the other European nations that have
been connected with it; that they strove to bind in the closest I
bonds of affection and sympathy the East and the West and'
ii a proof of the enduring qualities of this attachment were
required one has only to enquire into the motives, apart from
those of pure scholarship, that animated Dr. Dalgado in the
-conception and in the execution of a task so arduous and
formidable. We shall quote his own words. "I have pursued
the task with an ardent zeal and unflagging enthusiasm inspired
-above all by my deep-rooted devotion to Portugal and my
thought of her glory."'''
It is an Indian, a son of Goa, who speaks thus of a land
that held and holds sway over his country but which had the
grace to give to him and his countrymen the privileges of
superior Culture, social and political equality and above all
the light of Christianity. The equtilitarian and fusionist doc-
trines of Portuguese colonial policy have come to be looked upon
as a failure by many ; the true standard of estimating the success
of colonial administration is in our opinion the affectionate
memory and the grateful esteem of the rulers by the conquered
indigenous population and tested by this standard the success
-of the Portuguese colonial policy has been a very great one.
It is the earnest hope and desire of present day politics to see
the East and West understand and met each other in a sort
of fraternal hand-shake ; thanks to Portugal and her orientation
this and even more has been accomplished by her within the
sphere of her activities, for where could we find a better illus-
tration of not only the brotherly sympathy but even of the
'fusion, of the East and the West than in the person, the career
and the achievement of Dr. Dalgado?
A. X. SOARES.

P.S.Since the above was written Monsignor Dr. Dalgado
passed away in Lisbon on the 4th of April 1922.

Influence of Portuguese Language On Indian Languages

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Influence of Portuguese Language On Indian Languages

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Influence of Portuguese Language On Indian Languages

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

&'7 AP11925

flOYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY

( Edited by the Honorary Secretary.)

SOCIETY'S LIBRARY, TOWN HALL.

PROBSTHAIN & Co.

Generated on 2014-07-26 16:18 GMT / http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015024028691

41. GREAT RUSSEL STREET. W. C. 1.

ART. II.THE PORTUGUESE HERITAGE

The Influence of Portuguese on the Languages of

the East with especial reference to the Languages

of the Bombay Presidency.

Tradition assigns 1410 as the commencement of that era of

exploration and discovery which under the guidance and the

encouragement of the famous Henry of Portugal, the Navigator,

was to render his country the foremost colonising power in

In 1510 King Emanuel I, surnamed the Fortunate, assumed

as the result, especially, of the discovery of the sea route to

Navigation, and Commerce of India, Ethiopia, Arabia and

In 1910 another Emanuel and the second of that name had

to seek safety in flight from his country and as an exile found

refuge in the land of his country's ancient ally, England. His-

tory could scarcely provide a more telling illustration of tragic

irony or of the instability of human institutions or glory.

West'; to-day she is but a 'shade of what once was great.'

help to preserve alive her memory with esteem and gratitude.

Immense country will feel no little surprise to learn that from

the middle of the 16th to as late as the 18th century, Portuguese

was the lingua franca not only of India but practically of

the whole of the East. Garcia d'Orta, the famous physician

Generated on 2014-07-26 10:55 GMT / http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015024028691

and naturalist, tells us that Husein, the heir apparent of Burhan

12 THE PORTUGUESE HERITAGE TO THE EAST.

Nizam Shah of Ahmednagar.had learnt the Portuguese language

from him and that they both carried on conversation through

this medium.1 This was somewhere about 1540. In 166S

a Portuguese priest put the following query to some French

Sural in what language will you make yourself understood?

not in Portuguese, though that is most widely known, for you

totally unknown to the people of these parts." 2 Charles

Lockyer who published his ' An Account of the Trade in India,'

in 1711, remarks: "The Portuguese may justly boast they have

established a kind of lingua franca in all the sea-ports of India

of great use to other Europeans who would find it difficult in

many places to be well understood without it".3 Captain

Alexander Hamilton published his "New Account of the East

of their language, though much corrupted, yet it is the language

that most Europeans learn first to qualify them for a general

converse with one another, as well as with the different inha-

The principal impulse that gave a start to the early

Portuguese voyages of exploration and discovery was the

outcome of an ardent desire to spread their faith among

so much of spices as of Christians. Every flotilla of ships that

were not only to minister to the needs of the European popula-

country. The early missionaries employed only Portuguese

in their work of evangelisation ; in fact in the first heat of the

conquest of Goa so much were they seized with the frenzy of

respect temples and other emblems of Hinduism but went to

the length of even destroying the vernacular literature of the