The Indo-Portuguese Creole of Diu:
‘participant', ‘alien' or ‘observer' of the
Indian linguistic area?
SCONLI, February 19th, 2009
Hugo C. Cardoso
Univ. of Amsterdam
Indo-Portuguese?- The product(s) of contact between Indian civilization(s) and Portuguese culture.
- Contact between Portugal and India (+ Sri Lanka, + Bangladesh) from 1498 onwards.
- Coastal contact, wide geographic distribution.
- Multifaceted:Indo-
Portuguese
Indo-Portuguese?- The product(s) of contact between Indian civilization(s) and Portuguese culture.
- Contact between Portugal and India (+ Sri Lanka, + Bangladesh) from 1498 onwards.
- Coastal contact, wide geographic distribution.
- Multifaceted:Indo-
Portuguese
Cuisine
Architecture
History
Art
PeopleLanguage
etc.etc.
Indo-Portuguese creoles- A number of Portuguese-based creole languages spoken in the South Asia region.
- Portuguese colonisation in India from ± 1500 until 1961 (Goa, Daman and Diu).
- Several varieties, geographically discrete, reflecting different patterns of linguistic contact (different local adstrate).
- Most varieties extinct:
Indo-Portuguese: some recorded varieties
Indo-Portuguese: nowadays
IP at present- Daman (U.T.): ± 4000 speakers, incl. children;
- Korlai (MH): ± 760 speakers, entirely Christian village;
- Diu (U.T.): ± 170 speakers, incl. children;
- Cannanore/Kannur (KL): 6 elderly speakers;
- Cochin/Kochi (KL): 1 elderly speaker;
- Dadra and Nagar-Haveli (U.T.): ? (awaiting prospection);
- Sri Lanka: ? (last available data from 1980s).
Formation of IP creoles-Chronology: early in the colonisation period (i.e.16th century) - records of mixed Indian and European offspring as early as 1516.
- Linguistic contact involving:
a) South Asian languages – Gujarati, Marathi, Malayalam, Tamil, Sinhala, Bengali, etc.
b) Portuguese (Pidgin?)
- 16th- through 19th-century documents refer to role of Portuguese for communication in Asia; common epithet “corrupt/broken Portuguese” (coll. Lopes 1936).
Diu Indo-Portuguese
Diu- Island territory off the coast of Gujarat –Saurashtra region.
- Centrally administered as a Union Territory along with Daman, Dadra and Nagar-Haveli (geographically discrete).
- Present-day population: ± 40,000.
- Population break-up: Hindus (± 37,000, ± 93%), Muslims (± 3,400, ± 6%), Christians (± 250, ± 0.6%), Jains (minority).
Map of Diu
Diu Indo-Portuguese- Contact with (Kathiawadi) Gujarati.
- (Colonial presence in Diu: 1535 - 1961)
- Spoken by members of the Hindu, Muslim and Christian communities.
- Native speakers: estimate 170, all Christian.
- In younger generation, knowledge restricted to the Christian community.
- Co-exists in Diu with standard Portuguese (main lexifier), contact with Daman IP.
Questions and method- To what extent does the Indo-Portuguese creole of Diu (DIP) align with its neighbouring language(s) in typological terms, and how much of it was brought about by convergence with Gujarati?
- How does this relate to the proposed Indian linguistic area (ILA)?
- Step 1: literature review for collation of features recognised as pertaining to the ILA.
- Step 2: ascertaining the presence, absence and/or contingent effects of these features in DIP.
Selected ILA features
DIP alignment
DIP alignment
Stress is non-contrastive and perceptually weak in various Indian languages (leading to disagreement about its conceptual relevance).
In DIP, stress falls consistently on the last syllable – it is therefore not lexically determined and not contrastive.
[In etymological terms, the DIP stressed syllable normally corresponds to the stressed syllable in Portuguese, and any subsequent syllable did not survive: ex. PT alPARca > DIP alPAK; PT MÚsica > DIP MUZ]
Stress
Like Portuguese, the basic word order in DIP simple declaratives is SVO, and in ditransitive constructions the IO occurs after the DO:
- yo tə kuziŋa aroz ku pex.
1s IPFV.NPST cook-INF rice and fish
'I'm cooking fish and rice.'
- ns de-w diŋer pə igrej.
1P give-PST money DAT church
'We gave money to the church.'
Word order 1
There is however a high degree of flexibility when it comes to the placement of constituents in actual speech, like in most members of the ILA:
- tud yo sab faz-e.
all 1s know.NPST make-INF
'I can do everything.'
Word order 2
A preverbal focus position (reminiscent of e.g. Gujarati) is operative and often results in atypical word order:
- də nĩge yo nə tə fik-a med.
of nobody 1s NEG IPFV.NPST become-INF fear
'I am not scared of anyone.'
Word order 3
The SVO tendency and preverbal focus are contradictory if O is focussed, and in certain cases combine leading to predicate doubling:
- ãt kastl -r prizãw -r nə?
before fort COP-PST prison COP-PST REQ
'Earlier the fort was a prison, nə?'
Word order 4
Departures from the prototypical word order often respond to constituent ellipsis, which is as unconstrained in DIP as it is in most members of the ILA:
- kume nã te nə? pb mem nə?
food NEG have.NPST REQ poor EMPH REQ
'[I] have no food, nə? [I am] very poor, nə?'
Word order 5
DIP (and Portuguese) use prepositions where most ILA members use postpositions:
- DIP: ku kuyr; nə bastãt paiz
- PT: com colher; em vários países
with spoon in various country(ies)
- GJ: camci-thi; juda juda des-o-mã
colher-INS diferente diferente país-PL-LOC
The exception is the optional postposition of part of a complex adposition such as jũt də '(together) with' (e.g. jũt də Leslie > də Leslie jũt > Leslie jũt)
Word order 6
Concerning the order of possessor and possessee, DIP is quite strict in that pronominal possessors precede the head noun and lexical possessors follow; there is however a budding tendency to also place lexical possessors in prenominal position:
- də tt kaz jə bẽze-w?
of T. house already bless-PST
'Has [he] already blessed Tt's house?'
Word order 7
In Portuguese, comparative constructions follow the structure: Comparee-V-(Mod)Parameter-COMP-Standard.
In various Indian languages, the standard of comparison is case-marked with an oblique case. In Gujarati, for instance, the structure of the comparative is either: Comparee-AblStandard-Parameter-V or AblStandard-Comparee-Parameter-V.
Standard of comparison
In DIP, the structure of the comparative is: Comparee-V-(Mod)Parameter-COMP-AblStandard.
- galiŋ may barat ki də karner.
chicken COP.NPST more cheap COMP ABL mutton
'Chicken is cheaper than mutton.'
DIP therefore combines a Portuguese-type structure with the ILA feature of oblique marking on the standard of comparison.
Standard of comparison
Dative subjectsUsed in DIP when the subject is non agentive:
experiencer, subjects of sensory verbs or with no control over the action are Dative-marked:
- a mĩ tə sĩt-i fri.
DAT 1s.OBL IPFV.NPST feel-INF cold
'I feel cold.'
- pə l təme aprende-w purtəgez ku ns.
DAT 3sf also learn-PST portuguese with 1p
'She also learnt Portuguese from us.'
Participant, alien, observer?
Participant, alien, observer?
- The question of the participation of DIP in the ILA is a non-question, in the sense that the established members of the ILA are not required to fulfill all the most salient typological requirements.
- The comparative study highlighted the typological duality of DIP as well as its flux (tending towards convergence with Gujarati).
- On a sociopolitical level, realising commonalities of DIP and the ILA may be relevant to legitimise it as a language of India.
Thanks.