Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures Online

1. Introduction ⇫ ¶

Sri Lanka Portuguese (autoglossonym portugees or purtugees) is spoken by a dwindling number of the island’s Burgher ethnic group, descendants of unions between (primarily) Portuguese and Dutch men and local women. The two areas where a few speakers may be found are the east coast towns of Batticaloa and Trincomalee. These communities are generally poor and have been badly affected by natural and human-induced disasters, such as the 2004 tsunami and the long civil war.

2. Sociohistorical background ⇫ ¶

Sri Lanka, or Ceylon as it was then known, was discovered by the Portuguese in 1505 (possibly slightly earlier), but it was not until 1517 that an expedition was sent from Goa to establish a trading post at Colombo. From this relatively modest beginning, the Portuguese gradually extended their authority and by 1617 they nominally controlled the entire island except for the central highlands where the Kingdom of Kandy remained a centre of opposition to Portuguese rule. In fact, the cost of the continual warfare with Kandy consistently outstripped the profits from trade. As in other parts of their colonial empire, unions between Portuguese men and local women were common, and a community developed identifying itself as Portuguese and speaking a Portuguese-based creole.

Beginning with the union of the Spanish and Portuguese crowns in 1580, events in Europe weakened Portugal’s ability to control its vast overseas possessions, which began to fall prey to the rising power of Holland. In 1632, at the invitation of the king of Kandy, the Dutch began a drive to expel the Portuguese. A protracted period of conflict followed, culminating in 1658 with the capitulation of the last Portuguese strongholds. The Dutch in their turn were supplanted in 1798 by the British, who completed their dominion with victory over Kandy in 1815. The island regained its independence in 1948.

After the arrival of the Dutch, Standard Portuguese was replaced by Dutch as the administrative language, but the Dutch also made use of Portuguese or a Portuguese-lexified contact language, as was their practice in other parts of their overseas empire. Moreover, “Ceylon-Portuguese” became the language of the families that the Dutch men established with their local wives, and when the British came to power it was spoken by the entire Burgher community - mixed-race individuals of Portuguese or Dutch ancestry. Soon after the British takeover Dutch fell into disuse, just as Standard Portuguese had done previously.

The British did not follow the Portuguese and Dutch in marrying locally, nor did they make much use of Portuguese as a contact language outside the Burgher community, relying instead on “broken English”. Although the Burghers all spoke creole, the community was stratified into “Portuguese Burghers” and “Dutch Burghers”. Many of those with Dutch ancestry had worked for the Dutch administration, and many of these found new clerical jobs working for the British. Most of this group abandoned the creole in favour of English in the latter part of the 19th century. Many of these subsequently abandoned Sri Lanka altogether, using their well-documented Dutch ancestry to gain admission to Australia or South Africa. Following 1900, Sri Lanka Portuguese disappears from view entirely, until it was “rediscovered” in the 1960s by Dr. D.E. Hettiaratchi of the University of Sri Lanka. By that time, it appeared to be moribund or extinct in all but the mainly Tamil-speaking east coast of the island.

3. Sociolinguistic situation ⇫ ¶

Even during the British period, “Portuguese Burghers” were an economically depressed group. With no lands of their own, they engaged in petty trades such as carpentry, smithery, and the repair and maintenance of machinery. Many have been unemployed in a country where non-agricultural jobs have always been at a premium.

In Batticaloa and Trincomalee all speakers are bilingual in Tamil, with some also speaking Sinhala and/or English. In most families, Tamil has supplanted the creole as a home language. This is due to a number of factors:

-   Marriage with non-speakers is on the increase.

-   Men must often seek work elsewhere on the island where they are in a purely Tamil or Sinhala-speaking milieu. 

-   Children learn Tamil from their peers at a very young age and there is strong pressure against the use of creole when Tamil speakers are present.

-   Unemployment is a constant concern, and in Sri Lanka, Sinhala and English are the most likely to be needed for work. Many parents feel they should encourage their children to speak a more useful language at home.

  Literary Sri Lanka Portuguese is largely a 19th-century phenomenon. The work of David Jackson (e.g. 1990) demonstrates that an oral tradition existed, which because of its ties with the traditions of other Portuguese-speaking communities probably originated in the period of Portuguese rule on the island. Some of this folk-tradition was recorded using Dutch orthographical conventions in the Nevill manuscript brought to light by Jackson (1990). The printed literature, however, uses the Portuguese orthographical conventions developed for the language by the missionaries of the Wesleyan Mission Society. Grammatically, it reflects a missionary-created diglossic high with heavy influence from English and Standard Portuguese.

4. Phonology ⇫ ¶

Sri Lanka Portuguese retains the oral vowels of Middle Portuguese (except marginal ə), losing contrastive nasalization, but adding a vowel length contrast, as shown in Table 1. Examples are oy ‘today’ < Portuguese hoje vs. ooy ‘eye’ < Portuguese olho; stam ‘stem, trunk’ < Dutch stam vs. caam ‘ground, earth’ < Portuguese chão). Only the last underlying long vowel remains long on the surface, the others being shortened. Stress is non-contrastive, falling on the syllable containing the long vowel, or on the initial syllable if the word has no long vowel (e.g. míída ‘measure’ N, midíí ‘measure’ V, mididóór ‘measurer’, jínjiviri ‘ginger’).

 The opposition between close-mid and open-mid vowels has been weakened: With some exceptions, stressed penultimate syllable e was lowered to ɛɛ before final syllable u or a, and stressed penultimate syllable o was lowered to ɔɔ before final syllable i or a (Smith 1977: 112fn), e.g. pɛɛzu ‘weight’ < Portuguese pêso /pezu/, dɔɔsi ‘sweet' < Portuguese doce /dosi/. A number of other historical and synchronic metaphonic processes are found, as e.g. seen in akordaa ‘agree’ vs. ɔkɔɔrda ‘agreement’. As in Tamil and Sinhala, sequences of vowels do not occur, Portuguese vowel sequences being monophthongized, as in paam ‘bread’ < pão, reduced to V+approximant, as in deevs ‘god’ < deus, or broken up through insertion of an approximant, as in duveenti ‘ill’ < doente.

     Sri Lanka Portuguese has the 19 consonants listed in Table 2, to which could be added those occurring only in loanwords from English (apico-alveolar stops) or Tamil (retroflex consonants).

The velar nasal is marginal in the Batticaloa dialect, appearing only in one morpheme, uŋ ‘one’ (Quantifier) and related forms, such as uŋa ‘one’ (N) and aluŋas ‘some [people]’. Internally, nasal-stop clusters are homorganic; /m/ and /ŋ/ but not /n/ assimilate across a boundary. (This assimilation is not shown in the representations used here.) The consonants /n/ and /l/ have retroflex allophones following a(a) and ɔ(ɔ), as in maal [mɑːɭ] ‘bad’ and nɔɔna [nɔːɳɐ] ‘woman’ < Sinhala noonə. The labiodental approximant /v/ [ʋ], which replaces the Portuguese labiodental fricative, is a South Asian areal feature. The sole remaining voiced fricative /z/ is frequently realized as lenis unvoiced, still contrasting with tense unvoiced /s/. Unvoiced consonants tend to geminate in some environments, such as adjacent to a stressed vowel, particularly in careful speech; there is a counter tendency for them to be lenis in rapid speech. For details see Smith 1977: 115–19. The voiced stops tend to be very lenis or even spirantized intervocalically and in intervocalic clusters with /r/, e.g., iyaarga [ijɑːɾɣɐ ] ‘beside’. The palatals /ɲ/ and /j/ [ʤ] optionally weaken to approximants, as in lɛɛɲa [lɛːɲa ~ lɛːj̃ɐ] ‘young coconut’, greeja ~ greeya ‘church’. The approximant /v/ alternates with /b/ in some words, e.g., baaka ~ vaaka ‘cow, bull’. There is some tendency to break up obstruent+/r/ clusters by vowel epenthesis, as in kaatru ‘four’ [kɑːtru ~ kɑːturu].

5. Noun phrase¹ ⇫ ¶

All specifiers and modifiers precede the noun. A few frozen constructions preserve Portuguese word order, e.g. panuvɛɛy ‘rag’ < pano velho ‘old cloth’, mayskaarda ‘left’ < mão esquerda ‘left hand’. Nouns inflect optionally for number and obligatorily for case. Case suffixes are added to the nominative form of the noun, and the same case suffixes are used in both singular and plural, with the nominative plural acting as plural stem, as in baaka-s-pa (cow-pl-dat/acc). The case suffixes are listed in Table 3.

Case forms are regular for all nominals, except the pronouns of the first person singular, second person singular and first person plural. Although the same case marker is used for dative and accusative, the two categories are distinct in that case-marking for dative is obligatory for all NP, while only [+human] nominals are obligatorily marked for accusative, and [‑animate] nominals are obligatorily unmarked; accusative marking is optional for [‑human, +animate] nominals. The variant ‑ntaa of the locative suffix is optional for human nouns when no postposition follows. In head-final languages it can be difficult to distinguish between postpositions and case suffixes and enclitics. The case markers are treated as suffixes because they have been phonologically reduced (and may be phonologically dependent), cannot be stressed (except –ntaa), and are preceded only by nominal stems.

     Grammatical gender is not found, but natural gender is distinguished in some noun pairs, such as kuɲaadu ‘brother-in-law’, kuɲaada ‘sister-in-law’. In one pair a frozen postposed adjective is used: irumaam-maaci ‘brother’, irumaam-fɛɛmiya ‘sister’. Otherwise, the normally preposed adjectives are used, as in maaci pavaam ‘peacock’, fɛɛmiya pavaam ‘peahen’.

     The numeral uŋ ‘one’ can be used as a singular indefinite marker and the demonstratives isti ‘this’ and aka ‘that’ are used as definite markers.

Generic nouns are unmarked, as in (3):

(3)       Lagaarti-su       kruuva  cooru    […]     naanda      murda     balfaa      kacoor.

         crocodile-gen   fresh      tear       […]     mkd.neg     bite          bark        dog

         ‘The crocodile’s tears are fresh… Barking dogs don’t bite.’ (5629 & 5631, sung)

For comparisons of inequality, the comparative marker is the postposition dika (< Portuguese do que), which may optionally take the dative of the standard, as in (4):

(4)       karant-pa          dika    maas   gaastu

         electricity-dat   than    more   expense

         ‘[With a kerosene fridge, there is] more expense than electricity.’ (5043)

Superlatives use a universal standard

(5)       Isti       mee   tudu  dika   graandi      kaama.

         this      foc   all        than    big              bed

         ‘this is the biggest bed.’ (678, elicited)

Comparatives of equality use the enclitic particle =ley ‘like/advz’.

(6)       Ootru    tɛɛra-su          sirviis=ley duraaval    nun-teem.

         other     country-gen   work=like durable      neg-be

         ‘[Things made in this country] are not as durable as other countries’ work.’ (5397)

Adnominal possessors are marked with the genitive case and precede the possessum, as seen in the last example.

     Numerals are listed below. The numeral uŋ is adnominal; uŋa is an independent form. Recorded ordinals are prumeer (1st), dozeer (2nd), trezeer (3rd), katreer (4th), sinkeer (5th), sezeer (6th), sɛɛtida (7th), oytuda (8th), dɛɛzda (10th), dɔɔzida (12th), the last four of which likely represent the pattern for higher numerals.

1      uŋ/uŋa         2            doos                  3          trees

4      kaatru          5            siinku                6          sees 

7      sɛɛti              8            ooytu                 9          nɔɔvi    

10      dɛɛs              11          ɔɔnzi                  12        dɔɔzi    

13      treezi             14          katoorzi             15        kiinzi   

16      disees            17          disɛɛti                18        dizooytu   

19      diznɔɔvi        20          viinti                  21        vinta-uŋ/uŋa

22      vinta-doos    30          triinta                31        trinta-uŋ/uŋa   

40      kɔrɛɛnta       50          sinkvɛɛnta         60        sɛsɛɛnta   

70      sɛtɛɛnta        80          oytɛɛnta             90        nɔvɛɛnta  

100      usɛɛnta         200        dooz-usɛɛnta    300      treez-usɛɛnta

1000    um-miil         2000      dooz-miil

     No distinction is found between dependent and independent pronouns. The case forms of the pronouns are listed in Table 4. The first person singular and plural and second person singular pronouns have a suppletive genitive that also functions as the stem for the locative suffix. This suppletive genitive is also used with the postposition juuntu ‘with’ (from which the locative is historically derived): thus miɲa juuntu ‘with me’, but eli juuntu ‘with him’.

6. Verb phrase ⇫ ¶

The tense, mood, and aspect categories of Sri Lanka Portuguese largely mirror those of the local languages. Dravidian (or Dravidian-like) influence has also decoupled the positive and negative systems to some extent, so that there is not always a one-to-one correspondence between positive and negative forms.

The core of the positive system has three tense-marking prefixes (present, past, future) and one aspectual prefix (perfective); the Batticaloa dialect adds a second aspectual prefix (habitual). The possible combinations of markers are shown in Table 5.

The interpretation of the markers is not affected by the Aktionsart of the verb, though of course some aspectual categories are generally incompatible with some Aktionsarten. For example, the perfective is generally incompatible with stative verbs, and combining the two forces a dynamic interpretation on the verb (as in ex. 7).

     As in Tamil and Sinhala, the existential verb functions as post-verbal auxiliary for perfect and progressive aspects. In Table 6, the symbol # indicates the marker is a free form rather than an affix and shows the order of the marker with respect to the verb. The auxiliary inflects with the normal preverbal tense-aspect markers. (Note that past is marked suppletively.)

In Sri Lanka Portuguese, when the main verb is followed by an auxiliary, it may be past-marked unless the auxiliary bears the future prefix lo-, while the local languages use a distinct “conjunctive” participial form. The main verb cannot carry other preverbal tense-aspect markers.

Both preverbal and postverbal modality markers are found (see Table 7). Generally the modality markers are incompatible with main verb tense marking, though the postverbal auxiliaries often take past-marking on the main verb and may themselves inflect for tense. The obligative/hortative mes/mes(t)a- may co-occur with either pre- or postverbal perfective markers and the irrealis can combine with the preverbal perfective as lodi-kaa-.

     The perfective auxiliaries generally carry some kind of additional modality. For example botaa indicates closure with respect to the event or object of the verb.

Auxiliaries (kera, pooy, botaa, largaa, daa) also function as main verbs; as expected, their lexical meaning is generally bleached when they are used as auxiliaries; thus botaa in these examples loses its lexical meaning ‘put’. Similarly the main verb daa ‘give’ loses its lexical meaning when used as a benefactive auxiliary.

(11)    Avara    tɔɔna             taam    aka   eli               faya     lo-daa. 

         now       afterwards   cnj      that  3sg.nhon   do        fut-ben

         ‘So he will do it again [i.e. repair the household water system] afterwards for you.’ (1462)

The negative markers signal aspect and modality rather than tense; they cannot be accompanied by tense markers (see Table 8).

     Distinctions among the three negative imperative forms are not clear, although it is evident that nikara# is morphologically related to kera, and numis(ta)- is related to mes(ta). While negative perfective imperatives are found, combinations of other negative markers with aspect markers do not occur (except for the specialized function of ki-nuku- as a verbal adjective and verbal noun marker).

(12)    Numis-kaa-largaa.

         neg.imp-pvf-leave

              ‘Don’t leave [it].’/ ‘Don’t give it up.’ (Reference is to the house the addressee was renting). (1437)

Some non-imperative negatives are given below.

(13)    Taantu  jeentis-pa      nuku-falaa.

         many     people-dat   neg-tell

         ‘He didn’t invite many people.’ (1496)

(14)    Sirviis    juustu   nun-teem      see,      nuku-vala,        naa?

         work     correct  neg-be          cond    neg-be.worth   no

         ‘If the work is not right, it’s no good, eh?’ (1481b)

(15)    Alaa    ki-teem  ɔɔras-untu   eev  naa             papiyaa  isti     lingvaay.    

         there   hab-be  temp-loc     1sg mkd.neg     speak    this   language

         ‘When I was there [at work], I wouldn’t speak [it], this language.’ (2782)

(17)    Eli-pa                  oviidu    naa             ovii. 

         3sg.nhon-dat     ear         mkd.neg     hear

         ‘He is deaf.’ (Lit. ‘To him the ears don’t hear.’) (1388b)

(18)    Aka     juustu   naa          vii.   

         that     right      mkd.neg  come

         ‘That won’t come right.’ (I.e. That can’t be repaired.) (5394)

Most independent forms can function as verbal adjectives in a relative clause construction or as ‘conjunctive’ participles (see §8). A number of dependent markers are also found, as listed in Table 9.

The marker ki- co-occurs with tense and negation markers. The conditional marker co-occurs with the negative marker nuku-. An alternative conditional formation uses the final particle see (see §8). Some examples of dependent clauses are given below.

(22)    Tyuvishan  ki-ta-daa              graandi    viraadu.

         tuition        nmlz-prs-give     great        error

         ‘Giving tuition [to a child] is a great error.’ (5394)

(24)    Avara  pa-faya  kam-andaa   noos-pa   bariiya-ntu     pa-botaa  mee   nuntem.

         now     inf-do   cond-go        1pl-dat   stomach-loc  inf-put    foc   neg.be

         ‘Now if we go to do it, we don’t have anything even to put in our stomachs.’ (5149)

7. Simple sentences ⇫ ¶

Unmarked word order is SOV. Nonverbal elements that represent given information are frequently omitted. Aside from auxiliaries, discourse particles, and subordinators, two types of element may follow the verb. First, explanatory or clarificatory elements, including elements that could have preceded the verb often appear in a post-verbal coda; there may or may not be a pause before a coda, and the main intonation drop of the sentence occurs before the coda, generally on a verbal element. Focussed elements may be stay in situ or be left or right dislocated. The main intonation drop of the sentence falls on the focus, which may be also be marked with the focus particle mee; in addition, the verb may be nominalized.

(27)    Poɖiyaas  sudu aka-ntu    mee   yaa-nasa,     aka   kaaza-ntu.

         child        all     that-loc  foc   pst-be.born that  house-loc

              ‘It was there that the children were all born – in that house.’ (5105)

(28)    Miɲa       meshiin-ntu    mee   isti     poɖiyaas  fuula            ki-botaa.

         1sg.gen   machine-loc  foc   this   child        embroidery  nom-put.

         ‘It is on my machine that these children were embroidering.’ (5295)

These three features differentiate right dislocated focussed elements from codas, such as those as seen in, for example, (15), (29) and (32).

     Positive copulative sentences are generally verbless, whether the predicator is a nominal (22) or adjectival (31) expression. The verb teem/tiɲa ‘be’ is used if tense or aspect markers are expressed, if the clause is negative (6), or if there is no expressed subject (32). The same verb usually appears in locational and existential sentences, though (2) shows that it is not always required.

(31) Isti mɛɛza namaas lo-tem. Aka mɛɛza taam asii ungɔɔta kumpriidu.

this table only fut-be that table cnj thus a.little long

‘[When the sewing machine is folded away] there will only be a table. The table is quite long, too.’ (5323)

(32)    Muytu   tambom      lo-teem.

         very       good           fut-be

         ‘[It] will be very good.’ (3510)

  Sentences generally have a subject, whether it is expressed overtly or not. Certain verbs, however, take a ‘dative subject’, often an experiencer (an areal feature). Under Tamil influence, this phenomenon extends to verbs such as sava ‘know’, which in conservative speech take a nominative subject.

(34)    Oondi  impa    jaa-triiya    falaa=tu       parim       nuku-saba.

         where  from   pst-bring   quot=pfv    1sg.dat   neg-know.   

         ‘I don’t know where [they] brought [them] from.’ (5016)

(35) Prumeer parim jeentis alaa tiɲa. Avara nunteem.

earlier me.dat people there pst.be now neg.be

‘Earlier I had people [i.e. relatives] there, but now I don’t.’ (1891)

  A passive construction employs the verb fikaa ‘get; become’ followed by a past participle constructed on the Portuguese model. This construction was marginal even in the speech of older people in the 1970s. The following is the sole naturalistic example.

(36)    Pooy      faya  tɛɛmpu   taam    nuku-fikaa  fay-eedu.

         habil     do     time       cnj      neg-get      do-ptcp

         ‘And when we were able to [build a house] it wasn’t done’ (5146)

     Word order is generally unimportant in indicating grammatical relations, varying frequently from the unmarked order for discourse reasons such as marking old vs. new information, focussing etc. Grammatical and semantic relations are indicated by case marking and by postpositions. Postpositions most frequently govern the nominative case, with a few, such as dispoos ‘after’ and prumeer ‘before’ governing dative. One postposition impa ‘from’ governs locative. Locational postpositions generally govern the nominative case of inanimate nouns and the genitive case of animate nouns and pronouns. Thus kaaza diyaanti ‘in front of the house’, but paadri-su diyaanti ‘in front of the priest’, nosa aantra ‘amongst ourselves’.

     Polar interrogatives can be signalled by intonation alone or by a final indefinite marker voo. When two alternatives are offered, voo can mark one or both.

(37)    Avara  akii   konven-ntu     nuku-tiraa boos-pa   kustuura-pa?

         now     here  convent-loc   neg-take    2sg-acc   sewing-dat

              ‘Now here in the convent didn't [they] take you for sewing [classes]?’ (5270)

(38)    Doos   trees    diiya-pa    uŋ     gɛlan     kera    voo?

         two      three   day-dat   one   gallon    need    indf

         ‘For two or three days, [you] need a gallon?!’ (5039)

(39)    Akii   lo-triiya      voo,   bosa                  kaaza    lo-triiya      voo?

         here  fut-bring  indf  2sg.nhon.gen   house    fut-bring  indf

              ‘Will they bring it here or will they bring it to your house?’ (1031)

(40)    Vii          mees,     dɛɛzda      mees         voo      dɔɔzida  mees?

         come      month   tenth        month     indf    twelfth  month

         ‘[In] the coming month, on the 10th of the month or the 12th of the month?’ (4936)

8. Complex sentences ⇫ ¶

There are no coordinating structures at the clausal level, but a variety of dependent clause types are found.

Infinitival clauses have verbs bearing the prefix pa-, which precludes other verbal markers. Infinitival clauses are purposives (24), and may also be selected as a complement structure by certain verbs.

     Conditional clauses are formed with the conditional prefix kam/kanda- (19), or with the postposed conditional marker see/sara, in which case the verb is generally past-tense marked unless it has future reference (1), (8), (10), (14), (20), (21). Emphatic conditionals “even if….” are followed by the conjunctive particle taam (19).

     Conjunctive clauses, a South Asian areal phenomenon, are subordinate clauses that are functionally equivalent to clauses joined by coordinate conjunctions in other languages. Conjunctive constructions consist of a series of verbs which usually share a subject but which may each take different non-subject arguments. Only the final verb can be tense-marked; the others are in a dependent form known as the ‘conjunctive participle’ which in Dravidian languages is related to the past stem of the verb. In Sri Lanka Portuguese the conjunctive participle optionally bears the past prefix jaa- and/or the perfective participle enclitic =tu, but otherwise has no special marking. Examples are seen in (21), (23), (27).

     The salient characteristics of the Dravidian-style relative clause are prenominal position, the absence of a relative pronoun, a gap for the relativized noun within the relative clause, and a tense-marked verb. Dravidian languages feature overt morphology indicating that the verb is dependent; in Sri Lanka Portuguese the preverbal marker ki- may be so used, but is frequently omitted. Examples are seen in (21), (27), (33). As in Tamil and Sinhala relative clauses can modify grammaticalized head constituents, such as the temporal nominal ɔɔras (15), to form adverbial clauses.

Nominalized clauses (22) have a nominalized verb (marked with ki-) and lack an overt complementizer.

Quotative constructions use the quotative complementizer falaa, a grammaticalized verb (which also exists as an independent verb meaning ‘say, tell’). Because of its verbal origin, the quotative construction is structurally indistinguishable from other dependent clauses. Thus (10) & (34) are conjunctives and (27) is a conditional structure.

     Embedded questions may also use the quotative construction, particularly if an interrogative pronoun is present (34). Alternatively, the phrase-final indefinite marker voo can be used as a complementizer for embedded questions, giving them a greater sense of indeterminacy. This construction is most frequently used for embedded polar questions.

(41)    Daa   lo-tem      voo    nuku-daa  voo    kii        voo      nuku-saba.

         give   fut-pfv   indf  neg-give    indf  what   indf     neg-know

         ‘Whether he would have given or whether he didn’t give or whatever – I don’t know.’ (1490–1)

(42)    Noos   oondi  jaa-nasa         voo      deevs-pa     mee   saba.

         1pl      where pst-be.born   indf     god-dat     foc   know

         ‘Where we were born God alone knows.’ (4102)