The Indo-Portuguese Creole of Diu participant alien or

The Indo-Portuguese Creole of Diu: ‘participant', ‘alien' or ‘observer' of the Indian linguistic area? SCONLI, February 19 th, 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. Architecture - Multifaceted: Indo. Portuguese Art Language People Cuisine etc. History

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 1980 s).

Formation of IP creoles -Chronology: early in the colonisation period (i. e. 16 th 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? ) - 16 th- through 19 th-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 al. PARca > DIP al. PAK; PT MÚsica > DIP MUZ]

Word order 1 Like Portuguese, the basic word order in DIP simple declaratives is SVO, and in ditransitive constructions the IO occurs after the DO: - yo tə kuziŋ a aroz ku pex. 1 s IPFV. NPST cook-INF rice and fish 'I'm cooking fish and rice. ' - n s de-w diŋer pə igrej. 1 P give-PST money DAT church 'We gave money to the church. '

Word order 2 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 1 s know. NPST make-INF 'I can do everything. '

Word order 3 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 1 s NEG IPFV. NPST become-INF fear 'I am not scared of anyone. '

Word order 4 The SVO tendency and preverbal focus are contradictory if O is focussed, and in certain cases combine leading to predicate doubling: - ãt kast l -r before fort prizãw -r nə? COP-PST prison COP-PST REQ 'Earlier the fort was a prison, nə? '

Word order 5 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? p b mem nə? food NEG have. NPST REQ poor EMPH REQ '[I] have no food, nə? [I am] very poor, nə? '

Word order 6 DIP (and Portuguese) use prepositions where most ILA members use postpositions: - DIP: ku kuy r; - PT: com colher; with spoon - GJ: camci-thi; colher-INS nə bastãt em vários in paiz países various country(ies) juda des-o-mã 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 7 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 t t kaz of T. jə bẽze-w? house already bless-PST 'Has [he] already blessed T t 's house? '

Standard of comparison In Portuguese, comparative constructions follow the structure: Comparee-V-(Mod)Parameter-COMPStandard. 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-Abl. Standard. Parameter-V or Abl. Standard-Comparee-Parameter. V.

Standard of comparison In DIP, the structure of the comparative is: Comparee. V-(Mod)Parameter-COMP-Abl. Standard. - 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.

Dative subjects Used 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 1 s. OBL IPFV. NPST feel-INF cold 'I feel cold. ' - pə l təme aprende-w purtəgez ku n s. DAT 3 sf also learn-PST portuguese with 1 p '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.