Creole languages lexified by Portuguese
Portuguese creoles
(
Portuguese
:
crioulo
) are
creole languages
which have
Portuguese
as their substantial
lexifier
. The most widely-spoken creoles influenced by Portuguese are
Cape Verdean Creole
,
Guinea-Bissau Creole
and
Papiamento
.
Origins
[
edit
]
Portuguese overseas exploration in the 15th and 16th centuries
led to the establishment of a
Portuguese Empire
with trading posts, forts and colonies in Africa, Asia and the Americas. Contact between the Portuguese language and native languages gave rise to many Portuguese-based
pidgins
, used as
linguas francas
throughout the Portuguese sphere of influence. In time, many of these pidgins were
nativized
, becoming new stable creole languages.
As is the rule in most creoles, the
lexicon
of these languages can be traced to the parent languages, usually with predominance of Portuguese;
while the grammar is mostly original and unique to each creole with little resemblance to the
syntax of Portuguese
or the substrate language.
[
citation needed
]
These creoles are (or were) spoken mostly by communities of descendants of Portuguese, natives, and sometimes other peoples from the Portuguese colonial empire.
Until recently creoles were considered "degenerate" dialects of Portuguese unworthy of attention. As a consequence, there is little documentation on the details of their formation. Since the 20th century, increased study of creoles by linguists led to several theories being advanced. The
monogenetic theory of pidgins
assumes that some type of pidgin language ? dubbed West African Pidgin Portuguese ? based on Portuguese was spoken from the 15th to 18th centuries in the forts established by the Portuguese on the West African coast. According to this theory, this variety may have been the starting point of all the pidgin and creole languages. This may explain to some extent why Portuguese lexical items can be found in many creoles, but more importantly, it would account for the numerous grammatical similarities shared by such languages, such as the
preposition
na
, meaning "in" and/or "on", which would come from the Portuguese contraction
na
, meaning "in the" (
feminine
singular
).
Origin of the name
[
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]
The Portuguese word for "creole" is
crioulo
, which derives from the verb
criar
("to raise", "to bring up") and a
suffix
-oulo
of debated origin. Originally the word was used to distinguish the members of any ethnic group who were born and raised in the colonies from those who were born in their homeland. In Africa it was often applied to locally born people of (wholly or partly) Portuguese descent, as opposed to those born in Portugal; whereas in
Brazil
it was also used to distinguish locally born
black people
of African descent from those who had been brought from Africa as slaves.
In time, however, this generic sense was lost, and the word
crioulo
or its derivatives (like "Creole" and its equivalents in other languages) became the name of several specific Upper Guinean communities and their languages: the
Guinean
people and their
Kriol language
,
Cape Verdean
people and their
Kriolu language
, all of which still today have very vigorous use, suppressing the importance of official standard Portuguese.
Concise list
[
edit
]
- Upper Guinea
- Gulf of Guinea
- Indo-Portuguese
- Indo-Portuguese
- Northern Indo-Portuguese
- Southeast Asian
Africa
[
edit
]
Upper Guinea
[
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]
The oldest Portuguese creole are the so-called
crioulos
of Upper Guinea, born around the Portuguese settlements along the northwest coast of Africa. Portuguese creoles are the mother tongues of most people in
Cape Verde
and the
ABC Islands
. In
Guinea-Bissau
, the creole is used as lingua franca among people speaking different languages, and is becoming the mother tongue of a growing population. They consist of two languages:
Gulf of Guinea
[
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]
Another group of creoles is spoken in the Gulf of Guinea, in
Sao Tome and Principe
and
Equatorial Guinea
.
Many other Portuguese creoles probably existed in the former Portuguese
feitorias
in the
Gulf of Guinea
, but also in the Congo region.
[
citation needed
]
Portuguese pidgins
[
edit
]
Portuguese pidgins still exist in
Angola
and
Mozambique
.
[
citation needed
]
South Asia
[
edit
]
India
[
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]
Locations where creole languages influenced by Portuguese developed
The numerous Portuguese outposts in India and Sri Lanka gave rise to many Portuguese creole languages, of which only a few have survived to the present. The largest group were the
Norteiro languages
, spoken by the
Norteiro people
, the Christian Indo-Portuguese in the North
Konkan
. Those communities were centered on
Bacaim
, modern
Vasai
, which was then called the “Northern Court of
Portuguese India
” (in opposition to the "Southern Court" at
Goa
). The creole languages spoken in
Bacaim
,
Salsete
,
Thana
,
Chevai
,
Mahim
,
Tecelaria
,
Dadar
,
Parel
,
Cavel
,
Bandora
(modern
Bandra
),
Gorai
,
Morol
,
Andheri
,
Versova
,
Malvan
,
Manori
,
Mazagao
, and
Chaul
are now extinct. The only surviving Norteiro creoles are:
These surviving Norteiro creoles have suffered drastic changes in the last decades. Standard Portuguese re-influenced the creole of Daman in the mid-20th century.
The creoles of the
Coast of Coromandel
, such as of
Meliapor
,
Madras
,
Tuticorin
,
Cuddalore
,
Karikal
,
Pondicherry
,
Tranquebar
,
Manapar
, and
Negapatam
, were already extinct by the 19th century. Their speakers (mostly the people of mixed Portuguese-Indian ancestry, known locally as
Topasses
) switched to
English
after the British takeover.
Most of the creoles of the
Coast of Malabar
, namely those of
Cananor
,
Tellicherry
,
Mahe
, Cochin (modern
Kerala
), and
Quilon
) had become extinct by the 19th century. In Cananor and Tellicherry, some elderly people still spoke some creole in the 1980s. The only creole that is still spoken (by a few Christian families only) is
Vypin Indo-Portuguese
, in the
Vypin Island
, near Kerala.
Christians, even in
Calcutta
, used Portuguese until 1811. A Portuguese creole was still spoken in the early 20th century. Portuguese creoles were spoken in
Bengal
, such as at
Balasore
,
Pipli
,
Chandannagore
,
Chittagong
,
Midnapore
and
Hooghly
.
Sri Lanka
[
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]
Significant Portuguese creoles flourished among the so-called
Burgher
and
Kaffir
communities of Sri Lanka:
In the past, Portuguese creoles were also spoken in
Myanmar
and
Bangladesh
.
[
citation needed
]
Southeast Asia
[
edit
]
Locations were creole languages influenced by Portuguese developed
The earliest Portuguese creole in the region probably arose in the 16th century in
Malacca
,
Malaysia
, as well as in the
Moluccas
. After the takeover of those places by the Dutch in the 17th century, many creole-speaking slaves were taken to other places in Indonesia and
South Africa
, leading to several creoles that survived until recent times:
The Portuguese were present in the island of
Flores
,
Indonesia
since the 16th century, mainly in
Larantuka
and
Sikka
; but the local creole language, if any, has not survived.
[
citation needed
]
Other Portuguese creoles were once spoken in
Thailand
(In
Kudi Chin
and
Conception
) and
Bayingy
in
Burma
.
[
citation needed
]
Macau
[
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]
The Portuguese language was present in Portugal's colony
Macau
since the mid-16th century. A Portuguese creole, Patua, developed there.
South America
[
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]
A few Portuguese creoles are found in South America:
There is no consensus regarding the position of
Saramaccan
, with some scholars classifying it as Portuguese creole with an English relexification. Saramaccan may be an English creole with Portuguese words, since structurally (morphology and syntax) it is related to the
Surinamese creoles
(
Sranan
,
Ndyuka
and
Jamaican Maroon
), despite the heavy percentage of Portuguese origin words. Other English creole languages of Suriname, such as
Paramaccan
or
Kwinti
, have also Portuguese influences.
[
citation needed
]
Although sometimes classified as a creole, the
Cupopia
language from the
Quilombo do Cafundo
, at
Salto de Pirapora
, Sao Paulo, discovered in 1978 and spoken by less than 40 people as a secret language,
[4]
is better classified as a
Portuguese
variety since it is structurally similar to Portuguese, in spite of having a large number of
Bantu
words in its lexicon. For languages with these characteristics, H. H. do Couto has forged the designation of
anticreole
,
[5]
which would be the inverse of a creole language, as they are seen by the
non-European input theories
(i.e.:
creoles
= African languages grammar + European languages lexicon;
anticreoles
= European languages grammar + African languages lexicon).
There is a Portuguese dialect in Helvecia, South of
Bahia
that is theorized as presenting signs of an earlier decreolization. Ancient Portuguese creoles originating from Africa are still preserved in the ritual songs of the Afro-Brazilian animist religions (
Candomble
)
[
citation needed
]
.
Brazil
[
edit
]
It has been conjectured that the vernacular of Brazil (not the official and standard
Brazilian Portuguese
) resulted from decreolization of a creole based on Portuguese and native languages; but this is not a widely accepted view. Vernacular Brazilian Portuguese is continuous and mutually intelligible with European Portuguese, and in fact quite conservative in some aspects.
[6]
Academic specialists compiled by linguist Volker Noll
[7]
[8]
affirm that the Brazilian linguistic phenomena are the
"nativizacao"
,
nativization
/nativism of a most radically Romanic form. The phenomena in Brazilian Portuguese are Classical Latin and Old Portuguese heritage. This is not a creole form, but a radical Romanic form.
[6]
Regardless of borrowings and minor changes, it must be kept in mind that Brazilian Portuguese is not a Portuguese creole, since both grammar and vocabulary remain "real" Portuguese and its origins can be traced directly from 16th century European Portuguese.
[9]
Some authors, like Swedish Parkvall,
[10]
classify it as a
semicreole
in the concept defined by Holm:
[11]
a semicreole is a language that has undergone “partial restructuring, producing varieties which were never fully pidginized and which preserve a substantial part of their lexifier’s structure (...) while showing a noticeable degree of restructuring”. Nevertheless, scholars like Anthony Julius Naro and Maria Marta Pereira Scherre demonstrated how every single phenomenon found in Brazilian Portuguese can also be found in regional modern European Portuguese and 1500s and 1600s European Portuguese, such as the epic poetry of
Luis de Camoes
, as well as other Romance languages such as
Aranese Occitan
,
French
,
Italian
and
Romanian
, classifying these phenomena as a natural Romance drift.
[9]
Vernacular Brazilian Portuguese is continuous with European Portuguese and its phonetics is more conservative in several aspects, characterizing the nativization of a
koine
formed by several regional European Portuguese variations brought to Brazil and its natural drift.
[9]
North America
[
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]
One Portuguese-based creole language spoken in North America is:
- Papiamento
is spoken on Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao.
Papiamento
(spoken on Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao in the Caribbean) is closely related to the Upper Guinea Creoles:
[1]
Guinea-Bissau Creole and especially with Cape Verdean Creole. Papiamento has a Portuguese basis, but has undergone a large Spanish
[12]
and considerable Dutch influence.
Traces of a Portuguese-based pidgin have also been detected among the enslaved population in
New Netherland
.
[13]
See also
[
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]
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
Jacobs, Bart (2009).
"The Upper Guinea Origins of Papiamentu: Linguistic and Historical Evidence"
(PDF)
.
Diachronica
.
26
(3): 319?379.
doi
:
10.1075/dia.26.3.02jac
.
hdl
:
10961/207
.
ISSN
0176-4225
.
- ^
Forro was a declaration of freedom of a specific slave used in Portugal and its colonies. These were the most wished documents for the enslaved population. These freed slaves developed and stabilized a creole.
- ^
Madeira, Sandra Luisa Rodrigues (2008).
Towards an Annotated Bibliography of Restructured Portuguese in Africa
(PDF)
(Master's thesis). Universidade de Coimbra.
- ^
"Em Cafundo, esforco para salvar identidade" (in Portuguese).
O Estado de S. Paulo
. 24 December 2006. pp. A8.
- ^
Couto, Hildo Honorio do (2002).
Anticrioulo: Manifestacao linguistica de resistencia cultural
(in Portuguese). Brasilia, DF: Thesaurus Editora.
ISBN
85-7062-320-8
.
- ^
a
b
"Origens do portugues brasileiro"
.
www.parabolaeditorial.com.br
. Archived from
the original
on 2012-09-06.
- ^
Noll, Volker (1999).
Das Brasilianische Portugiesisch: Herausbildung und Kontraste
[
Brazilian Portuguese: Formation and Contrasts
] (in German). Heidelberg: C. Winter.
- ^
O Portugues brasileiro: Formacao e contrastes
(in Portuguese)
. Retrieved
2018-10-02
.
- ^
a
b
c
Naro & Scherre (2007)
- ^
Parkvall, Mikael (1999). "The Alleged Creole Past of Brazilian Vernacular Portuguese". In d'Andrade, Ernesto; Pereria, Dulce; Mota, Maria Antonia (eds.).
Crioulos de base Portuguesa
. Braga: Associacao Portuguesa de Linguistica. p. 223.
- ^
Holm, J. (1991),
American Black English and Afrikaans: Two Germanic Semicreoles
- ^
Schwegler, Armin (1999). "Monogenesis Revisited". In Rickford, John R.; Romaine, Suzanne (eds.).
Creole Genesis, Attitudes and Discourse
. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. p. 252.
- ^
Dewulf, Jeroen (2019). "Iberian Linguistic Elements among the Black Population in New Netherland (1614?1664)". Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages Vol. 34, No. 1. p. 49-82.
References
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]
Further reading
[
edit
]
- Cardoso, Hugo C.; Hagemeijer, Tjerk; Alexandre, Nelia (2015).
"Crioulos de base lexical portuguesa"
[Portuguese-lexified creoles]. In Iliescu, Maria; Roegiest, Eugeen (eds.).
Manuel des anthologies, corpus et textes romans
(in Portuguese). Berlin: De Gruyter. pp. 670?692.
doi
:
10.1515/9783110333138-043
.
hdl
:
10451/30870
.
ISBN
978-3-11-033313-8
– via ResearchGate.
- Cardoso, Hugo C. (2020). "Contact and Portuguese-Lexified Creoles". In Hickey, Raymond (ed.).
The Handbook of Language Contact
(2nd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: WileyBlackwell. pp. 469?488.
doi
:
10.1002/9781119485094.ch23
.
hdl
:
10451/44460
.
ISBN
978-1-119-48509-4
.
S2CID
225416064
.
- Fernandis, Gerard (2000).
"Papia, Relijang e Tradisang ? The Portuguese Eurasians in Malaysia: Bumiquest, A Search for Self Identity"
(PDF)
.
Lusotopie
: 261?268.
- Jayasuriya, Shihan de Silva (2000).
"The Portuguese Cultural Imprint on Sri Lanka"
(PDF)
.
Lusotopie
: 253?259.
External links
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]
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Upper Guinea
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Gulf of Guinea
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Indo-Portuguese
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Southeast Asian
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East Asian
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Creoles with strong
Portuguese lexical influence
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