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.