Sri Lankan Indo-Portuguese, Ceylonese Portuguese Creole or Sri Lankan Portuguese Creole (SLPC) is a language spoken in Sri Lanka. While the predominant languages of the island are Sinhala and Tamil, the interaction of the Portuguese and the Sri Lankans led to the evolution of a new language, Sri Lanka Portuguese Creole (SLPC), which flourished as a lingua franca on the island for over 350 years (16th to mid-19th centuries). SLPC continues to be spoken by an unknown number of Sri Lankans, estimated to be extremely small.

All speakers of SLPC are members of the Burgher community, who are descendants of the Portuguese and Dutch who founded families in Sri Lanka. Europeans, Eurasians and Burghers account for 0.2% of the Sri Lankan population. Though only a small group of people actually continue to speak SLPC, Portuguese cultural traditions are still in wide practice by many Sri Lankans who are neither of Portuguese descent nor Roman Catholics.

SLPC is associated with the Mestiço (Casado) people, an ethnic minority group. SLPC has been considered the most important creole dialect in Asia because of its vitality and the influence of its vocabulary on the Sinhalese language. Lexical borrowing from Portuguese can be observed in many areas of the Sinhalese language. Portuguese influence has been so deeply absorbed into daily Sri Lankan life and behavior that these traditions will likely continue. However, the majority of Dutch Burghers spoke Dutch, Portuguese, English, or Portuguese Creole.

Current use

Today, the language is spoken by descendants of Topazes and Mestiços, the Portuguese Burgher community, in the Eastern towns of Batticaloa (Koolavaddy, Mamangam, Uppodai, Dutch Bar, Akkaraipattu) and Trincomalee (Palayuttu). However, there are also speakers among the remaining Kaffirs, descendants of Bantu slaves, in the Northwestern province, in Puttalam and in Mannar. Additionally, in the village of Wahakotte near Galewala, in central Sri Lanka, there is a small community of Catholics with partial Portuguese ancestry, where the language was spoken until two generations ago.

Batticaloa is a medium-sized coastal town in the Eastern Province that has always been an isolated outpost, and has been able to retain many ancient habits. This isolation has been a factor in the preservation of SLPC, but very little information exists about the town's history. Tamil speakers are the overwhelming majority, but there is also a concentrated community of SLPC speaking Burghers. In the early part of the century most Burghers lived close to the center of the town, but more recently, many have moved to outlying areas. All of the Burghers in Batticaloa speak Tamil, many of them better than they do SLPC, and some also speak Sinhala and/or English. The group has no contact with any other creole speakers on the island, and the creole has for a long time been losing ground to Tamil. Currently, decreasing competence can be observed over successive generations: the younger a Burgher, the less likely they are to know the creole, and if they can speak it, their speech exhibits more Tamil features than that of their parents. Members of the burgher community are in constant interaction with Tamil speakers as they live, work, play, study, and worship together. Burgher children learn Tamil at the same time that they learn the creole. It is difficult to determine how many of Batticaloa's Burghers speak SLPC, but most probably understand it, though in many homes Tamil has become the predominant language.

|-

| nariz || || nose

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| besos || || lips

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| kum || || with

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| hum(a) || || one, a/an

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| sumana || || week

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| mael || || honey

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| meo || || middle

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| cam || || ground, floor

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| almuça || (lunch) || breakfast

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| fome || || hunger

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| basu || || low

|}

{| class="wikitable"

|+ Vocabulary of Dutch origin

|-

! Lemma !! Dutch word !! Gloss

|-

| krel || || curl

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| rol || || roll

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| gorgel || || throat

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| ruvin || || ruin

|}

Example of Tamil / Sinhala origin words:

{| class="wikitable"

|+ Vocabulary of Tamil/Sinhala origin

|-

! Lemma !! Tamil/Sinhala word !! Gloss

  • "what will you please to have?"<br/>note to indicate future
  • "Is it true?"
  • "There is no such thing."
  • "I have never heard of it."
  • "What do you advise me to do?"<br/>note to indicate present
  • "One cannot hear another speak"
  • "How many times have you married?"<br/>note to indicate past tense

See also

  • Ceylon Creole Dutch
  • Sri Lanka Kaffir people
  • Portuguese period in Ceylon
  • Burgher people
  • Dutch period in Ceylon

References

  • Sri Lanka Portuguese Creoles at a Sri Lanka virtual library site.
  • Documentation of Sri Lanka Portuguese Cardoso, Hugo C. 2017. London: SOAS, Endangered Languages Archive
  • APiCS Online - Survey chapter: Sri Lanka Portuguese