Kristang language
Papia Kristang, or just Kristang, is a creole language. It is spoken by the Kristang, a community of people of mixed Portuguese and Asian ancestry of the Malay race, chiefly in Malacca.
The language is also called Cristão or Cristan, Portugues di Melaka, Linggu Mai or simply Papia. However, locals and most of the Kristang community refer to the language as "Portugis".
In Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger published by UNESCO, Kristang is classified as a “severely endangered” language, with only about 2,000 people who speak it. Up to 2014, linguists concerned with Kristang have generally accepted a combined speaker population of about 1000 individuals or less. The language has about 750 speakers in Malacca and another 100 in Singapore. A small number of speakers also live in other Portuguese Eurasian communities in Kuala Lumpur and Penang in Malaysia, and in diaspora communities in Perth, Canada, the United Kingdom and elsewhere.
History
Origins
The Kristang language originated after the conquest of Malacca in 1511 by the Portuguese Empire. Until a takeover by the Dutch in 1642, Malacca served as one of the key ports in the trade and administration network of Portuguese establishments along with Goa and Hormuz, allowing Portugal control over main Asiatic trade routes. The lingua franca of Malacca then was a pidginised form of Malay known as Bazaar Malay or Melayu Pasar, used amongst the resident foreign population which then consisted mainly of Javanese, Tamils and Hokkien Chinese. The constant traffic of Portuguese and traders of other origins such as India eventually gave birth to Papia Kristang, one of many Portuguese-derived contact languages which resulted from Portuguese colonial expansion during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. A pidgin Portuguese preceding the Kristang creole has also been proposed, whereby a reduced system based on Portuguese converges with other languages present in the contact situation.The community of Kristang speakers descends mainly from interracial relationships between Portuguese men and local women, as well as a number of migrants from Portuguese India, themselves of mixed Indo-Portuguese ancestry. This was supported by Portuguese officials who advocated mixed marriages in the face of a labour shortage in the colonies, leading to the very first native speakers of Kristang as well as the development of the creole.
Even after Portugal lost Malacca and almost all contact in 1641, the Kristang community largely preserved its language. The demographics of Malacca in the mid-17 century was still predominantly made up of the Portuguese even under Dutch control. The Irmang di Greza, a manifestation of the bond between language and religion in the Kristang culture, acted as an intermediary between the priest and the remnants of the Portuguese population despite prohibition by the Dutch. Liturgy and pastoral sessions were conducted in Kristang in Malacca, which contributed to the longevity of the language into a period as late as the 20th century.
Kristang also had a substantial influence on Macanese, the creole language spoken in Macau, due to substantial migration from Malacca after its conquest by the Dutch.
Attrition of Kristang
The ceding of Malacca by the Dutch to the British via the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 directly caused the decline of the Kristang language. By the mid 19th century, many Kristangs flocked towards clerical and auxiliary positions provided by their new colonial masters. As such, the Kristang language saw a decline in use compared to English. In addition, the rising affluence of the region meant more job opportunities, resulting in many Kristangs moving away from Malacca. Moreover, the language is not taught at school, although there are still some Church services in Kristang.In the context of Singapore, Kristang arrived in the 1820s due to the large influx of Eurasian immigrants from Malacca. This resulted in a Kristang-speaking community large enough for the variety of the language spoken in Singapore to be acknowledged as a distinct variety of Creole Portuguese. However, there was little exposure and recognition of Kristang in Singapore, especially when English became entrenched as the sole language of education and the major language used in most spheres of society after the country gained independence in 1965. As a result, the intergenerational transmission of Kristang ceased almost completely.
The upkeep of Kristang can largely be attributed to its connection with the dominant religion of the Portuguese and their relative social standing in their communities between the 1600s to the late 1800s. The core Kristang-speaking communities gradually eroded due to better socioeconomic opportunities elsewhere. Post-World War Two, the new generation of Catholic priests that arrived to replace the pre-war priests who have been executed demonstrated little sensitivity towards the Kristang language and culture. Eventually, the bond between Kristang and religion was severed due to the association of the Portuguese Mission with the St Xavier's Church.
Migration overseas and intermarriage with other nationalities have also led to Kristang speakers leaving the Portuguese Settlement in order to live and work in other parts of Malaysia. Furthermore, the dominantly Kristang-speaking middle-class gradually began to speak English for practical reasons, altering the prestige of English with regards to Kristang. To many in the community, they grew to accept that speaking English was a key to employment instead of Kristang, facilitating a breakdown in the transmission of Kristang.
Revitalisation efforts
Papia Kristang is facing a steep decline in language use within the community. There has been an apparent language shift to English and Bahasa Malaysia due to the reduced prestige and accessibility of Kristang. However, revitalization efforts have begun in recent years in both the Portuguese Settlement in Singapore and Malacca. Such efforts have seen some success, nearly tripling the number of Kristang speakers of varying fluency.Singapore
The revitalisation of Papia Kristang in Singapore can be largely attributed to the initiative led by Kevin Martens Wong. This long-term revitalisation initiative seeks to revitalize the language by teaching it to a new generation of learners through complementary classes and the provision of online materials. Kodrah Kristang initially began with a small group of 14 people, eventually developing into a thorough Kristang revitalisation plan known as the Kaminyu di Kodramintu. The goals of the plan are twofold. Firstly, it sought to create a sizable pool of 50-100 new adults speakers who have acquired Kristang as a secondary language, speaking it alongside 75-100 elderly speakers. The subsequent focus will then be placed on intergenerational transmission. These estimates were made based on comparisons with other revitalized languages such as Hawaiian. In 2017, they also held the first Kristang Language Festival which was attended by more than 1,400 people, including the Portuguese-Eurasian community in Singapore and Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean.A Kristang Online Dictionary was also launched at the Kristang Language Festival. The project, Pinchah Kristang: A Dictionary of Kristang, is led and developed by Luís Morgado da Costa based on the WordNet system developed at Nanyang Technological University. This dictionary also supports another initiative known as Jardinggu, or Kristang Lexical Incubator. Initiated in April 2017, the Jardinggu provides a space for the discussion and accelerated addition of new words into the Kristang lexicon. Through this initiative, around 320 new lexemes for concepts that were previously represented by English loans have been suggested by the Kodrah community.
Malacca
The Kristang-speaking community located at the Portuguese Settlement, or Padri sa Chang was able to undertake more sustained revitalisation efforts and publicise itself to non-Eurasian Malaysians, and the language. Notably with texts, stories and phrasebooks in Kristang produced by Joan Margaret Marbeck and through investments and interest from individuals and organisations outside the community. Joan Marbeck has produced three publications: Ungu Adanza, Linggu Mai and the Kristang Phrasebook. She is also credited with writing probably the only play in Kristang, called Seng Marianne and was also instrumental in staging a musical in Kristang - Kazamintu no Praiya which translates to 'Wedding on the beach'.Within the community, there were efforts made together with the help of academics to promote their culture and the Kristang language. In 1988, Alan Baxter published A grammar of Kristang based on his fieldwork within the community. This was the first book which focused on the descriptive grammar of Kristang and established many core concept on Kristang linguistics. It also had a significant impact on many later studies on Kristang.
Support was also received from the Lisbon-based Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, which funded and published Marbeck's Kristang texts, as well as the University of Malaya and linguists like Dr. Stefanie Pillai, who have produced a CD of Kristang hymns, and in plans of developing Kristang textbook for beginners.
Along with Malacca Portuguese-Eurasian Association president Michael Gerald Singho, they published a textbook, Beng Prende Portugues Malaká , also known as Come, Let's Learn Portugues Malaká for people who want to learn Kristang. The association also maintains an active Facebook page aimed at sharing and promoting information related to the Kristang language the Kristang way of life.
Vocabulary
The Kristang lexicon borrows heavily from Portuguese, but often with drastic truncation. Due to its largely Portuguese vocabulary, the Kristang lexicon has much in common with other Portuguese-based creoles, including the near-extinct creoles of Indonesia and East Timor. As it is primarily a creole, much of its vocabulary is also derived from Chinese, Indian and Malay languages to varying degrees.| Meaning | Kristang | Origin Word | Origin Word Language |
| shrimp paste | blacan | belacan | Malay |
| walking stick | tongkah | tongkat | Malay |
| hoe | changkol | cangkul | Malay |
| jellyfish | ampeh | ampai | Malay |
| loincloth | kachu | katchu | Tamil |
| lime | churutu | surutu | Tamil |
| grandfather | tata | thatha | Tamil |
| spatula | chengsi | chiensi | Hokkien |
| lantern | aloleng | leng tsu | Hokkien |
| open-air restaurant | kolau | kou lau | Cantonese |
| convent | konventu | convent | Portuguese |
| hospital | ospital | hospital | Portuguese |
| toilet | kakus | kakhuis | Dutch |
| tombstone | kelda | kelder | Dutch |
Metathesis was common in the derivation of the Kristang lexicon from Portuguese root words.
e.g.
- Portuguese gordo → Kristang godru "fat"
Writing system
In general, attempts to spell Kristang falls into three broad categories:
;1. A system based on Portuguese orthography
;2. A system based on a mixture of Portuguese, English and Malay
;3. A system based on Malay orthography
The choice of orthography is significant as the maintenance of the Kristang language will depend on increasing the numbers of active Kristang speakers. Currently, the choice of an orthography presents a hindrance to the revitalization efforts of Kristang due to inconsistency and unintelligibility. While there exist relatively valuable historical works on the Kristang culture, the community would have difficulty reading it because of its spelling. As written Malay can be understood by many literate people not only in Malaysia but also other Malay-speaking countries, many later studies advocate a Malay-derived orthography which may also prove to be beneficial in increasing the prospects of the language's survival.
Phonology
The acoustic and articulatory properties of Kristang have not been extensively studied. However, Hancock, Batalha, and most recently, Baxter have outlined brief descriptions of its sound system. In general, Kristang's inventory of consonant and vowel phonemes shows a significant parallel to that of Standard Malay.Consonants
Orthographic note:Using a Malay-based orthography, the sounds are represented orthographically by their symbols as above, except:
- is written as
- is written as
- is written as
- is written as
- Portuguese chegar → Kristang chegak "two"
- Portuguese chuva → Kristang chua "rain"
Phonological contrasts
Baxter, in particular, established various phonemic contrasts in the Kristang consonant system.Stops and affricates contrast in the initial and medial positions.
Fricatives contrast in the medial positions. No clear distinctions between voiced-voiceless pairs and all fricative counterparts can be drawn as /v/ is highly infrequent and restricted in distribution and initial /z/ has fallen into disuse.
Nasals contrast do not contrast before a consonant, and no contrasts have been found in identical environments in the final position. In the initial position, only //, // and // contrast, while all nasals /,,, / contrast in the medial position. Tap, as well as lateral liquid consonants, contrast in all positions.
Vowels
The inventory of vowel phonemes in Kristang is also highly similar to Standard Malay vowel phonemes, which can be seen in the table above.Diphthongs and vowel sequences
Diphthongs in Kristang are formed when either the vowel /i/, or the vowel /u/, occurs in the same syllable as another vowel. The vowel /i/ and /u/ are pronounced as the semivowels and respectively in such cases.There are 10 word-internal diphthongs in Kristang as outlined by Baxter. Of all 10, 3 may also constitute hiatus, i.e. the vowels in would be pronounced as two distinct syllables in certain environments.
The relatively large number of diphthongs is also in contrast to Malay, whereby only three native diphthong phonemes are described:
- : kedai
- : kerbau
- : dodoi
The Portuguese diphthong are often reduced to in Kristang in Portuguese loan words, e.g.:
- Portuguese dois/dous → Kristang dos 'two'
- Portuguese à noite/à noute → Kristang anoti/anuti 'tonight'
Stress and rhythm
Kristang is a syllable-timed language.According to Baxter, most polysyllabic words in Kristang can be classified into two large groups based on the stress position in the word.
;Stress Rule A
Most words which end in a vowel have tonic stress on the penultimate syllable.
;Stress Rule B
Most words which end in a consonant have tonic stress on the final syllable.
However, stress pattern is not completely predictable in Kristang as there are also certain words which are exceptions to the above two rules.
Kristang also displays stress shifting in that many verbs display a tendency to shift their stress from the final syllable to penultimate syllable when followed by a stressed syllable in the next word, especially in rapid speech.
Grammar
The grammatical structure of Kristang is similar to that of the Malay language. The usage of verbs is one of the grammatical features of Kristang that displays this quality. While Portuguese verbs mainly use morphology, or suffixes, to change a verb's tense or for it to match with the person and number of its subject, Malay does not change the form of the verb itself. Instead, it makes use of pre-verbal words to convey tense and does not indicate the person or number of the subject in the form of the verb. Kristang's structure is practically identical to Malay, although the choice of words comes from Portuguese.Syntax
Papiá Kristang has Subject-Verb-Object word order in simple sentences. The direct human objects are case-marked by the preposition ku. The same preposition also marks indirect objects. Intransitive clauses, the case-marked indirect object may precede the direct object, especially when the former is pronominal. Noncore arguments are generally located either at the beginning or at the end of the sentence as shown in example.Adversity Passive, which is used to talk about situations where a negative action happens to something, but the person or originator of the negative action is not mentioned something, is also present both in Kristang and Malay. The Adversity Passive is signalled by kena, and by tokah.
| Colloquial Malay | Kristang | Colloquial English near-equivalent |
| Ikan kena makan | Pesi tokah kumih | The fish got eaten |
For complex sentences, the phrases and clauses are joined by coordinating conjunctions ku "with, and", kě "or", and mas "but". There are also instances where object clauses may be headed by ki; however, this is rare and is only found in traditional formal registers, as in a wedding speech. The most frequent means of expressing nominal subordination is parataxis as shown in example and.
Adverbial clauses are headed by antis di "before", kiora "when", chuma "as", kantu "if", padi "in order to", kauzu ki "because", kifoi "because", etc., yet may also be indicated by parataxis without conjunctions.
Relative clauses are headed by ki "what, who’", yet also commonly occur with a pronoun head or may occur without it. This can be seen in example and.
In Kristang, The noun phrase is a structure which can occur as subject of a verb,
object of a verb, object of a relator or as a predicate.
There are five types of prenominal determiners in Kristang:
Quantifier:
Numeral:
Interrogative determiner:
Demonstrative article:
The demonstratives isi and ake ‘that’ precede the noun and indicate a distance contrast.
Possessive NP + sa :
Adnominal possessives precede the noun and consist of possessor + genitive marker sa.
In comparative constructions of equality, the adjective is marked by iguál ‘equal’ and standard is marked by ku ‘with’:
In the comparative construction of inequality, the adjective is marked by más ‘more’ and the standard by di ‘of’:
The superlative comparison consists of the comparative of inequality plus a universal standard:
There is only one set of personal pronouns that occurs in all pronominal functions. The 3SG and 3PL pronouns only refer to animates, principally to humans.
| subject | object | independent pronouns | adnominal possessives | |
| 1SG | yo | yo | yo | yo + sa |
| 2SG | bos | bos | bos | bos + sa |
| 3SG | eli | eli | eli | eli + sa |
| 1PL | nus | nus | nus | nus + sa |
| 2PL | bolotu | bolotu | bolotu | bolotu + sa |
| 3PL | olotu | olotu | olotu | olotu + sa |
Morphology
Pluralisation is also the same in Malay as in Kristang. For example, in English and Portuguese, an ‘–s’ is added to make cats or gatos, whereas in Kristang and Malay, the entire word is duplicated, such as gatu-gatu in Kristang, and kucing-kucing in Malay. Reduplication is not only afeature of the noun class but also a feature of the adjective, adverb and verb classes. Adjectives and adverbs reduplicate to signify intensity: kěni~kěninu, “quite small, very small”, belu belu “quite old”, sedu sedu “quite/very early”. On the other hand, the interrogative pronouns reduplicate to signify indefiniteness: keng keng “whoever”, ki ki ‘children’, femfemi ‘women’. However, the reduplication of nouns with non-specific reference in object position may yield the meaning ‘all kinds of’ or ‘lots of’:
Without reduplication, the above sentence would simply express plural: ‘birds’.
To indicate verb tenses, the following appositions are used: jah for past tenses; ta for present continuous tenses and logu or lo for the future tense. These simplified forms correspond with their equivalents in Malay sudah, sedang, and akan, respectively.
| English | Portuguese | Malay | Kristang |
| I eat | Eu como | Saya makan | Yo kumih |
| I ate/have eaten | Eu comi | Saya sudah makan | Yo ja kumih |
| I will eat | Eu comerei | Saya akan makan | Yo logu kumih |
| He eats | Ele come | Dia makan | Eli kumih |
Papiá Kristang has two overt markers of aspect, an overt marker of future tense, and a zero marker.
This table summarised the functions of these markers:
| lexical aspect | tense/aspect | mood | |
| Ø | dynamic | habitual past/present | imperative |
| stative-1 or -2 | past / present | ||
| ja | dynamic | perfective | |
| ta | dynamic | imperfective past/present | |
| stative-2 | imperfective past/present | ||
| lo | dynamic | future habitual present/past | conditional |
| stative-1 or -2 | future |
Example shows the zero marker with a dynamic verb of past or present habitual representation:
Example shows the marker ja with a dynamic verb, with perfective aspect representation:
The marker ta occurs with dynamic verbs in past or present contexts, with either a progressive reading, as in, or an iterative reading, as in :
The marker lo conveys a future or conditional reading, as in examples and, respectively where it occurs with a dynamic verb:
The Tense-Aspect-Mood markers do not normally co-occur. Combinations of markers are very rare and when they do occur they appear to involve an adverbial reading of the initial marker. Thus, when ja is seen to combine with the imperfective marker ta, ja has the adverbial reading ‘already’ of its Portuguese source:
Kristang examples
Numbers
Much of the lexicon for Kristang numbers draws influence from Portuguese, a Romance language. However, unlike Portuguese, which distinguishes between the masculine and feminine forms of “one” and “two”, numbers in Kristang do not inflect for gender.| English | Kristang | Portuguese | Malay |
| one | ungua/ngua | um / uma | satu |
| two | dos | dois / duas | dua |
| three | tres | três | tiga |
| four | katru | quatro | empat |
| five | singku | cinco | lima |
| six | sez | seis | enam |
| seven | seti | sete | tujuh |
| eight | oitu | oito | lapan |
| nine | nubi | nove | sembilan |
| ten | des | dez | sepuluh |
Pronouns
A peculiarity of the language is the pronoun yo which is used in Northern Portuguese as well as Spanish and Italian/Sicilian.| English | Kristang | Portuguese | Malay |
| Me | yo | eu | saya / aku |
| You | bos | vós | Awak/Kamu |
| You | bolotudu/bolotu | vós todos | Awak semua/Kamu semua |
| We | nus | nós | kami |
| He/she/it | eli | ele, ela, isto | dia |
| They | olotu | eles | mereka |
Common phrases
Poem of Malacca
Portuguese translation:English translation:
Malay translation: