The formation of the Portuguese-based Creoles: gradual or abrupt? 2009

The formation of the Portuguese-based CreolesGradual or abrupt?*

John Ladhams

Some years ago, Arends pointed out that little was known about the gradual development – or otherwise – of the Portuguese-based Creoles, despite the existence of some early texts. The situation has changed very little, and this article attempts to redress the balance by examining both the linguistic evidence through early texts, as listed in the appendix, and the available socio-historical data. For most of the Portuguese-based Creoles, early linguistic evidence is lacking, and any assessment of the gradual nature of the Creoles’ development must be made largely through the historical data. The tentative conclusions drawn are that development was not gradual, particularly because nativisation took place early on, and there was no extended period of imports to renew the slave population, which would have had linguistic consequences, as is the case with the Indian Ocean French-based Creoles, for example.

1. Introduction

“With regard to the Iberian creoles (…), very little historical-linguistic work has been done, an unfortunate situation in view of the historical primacy of, especially, the Por-tuguese-lexicon creoles” (Arends 2002: 50).

Any attempt to trace the formation and early development of the Portuguese-based Creoles would seem to be fraught with difficulties. In the first place, they all arose at least 150 years before their English and French counterparts, with the result that historical evidence and documentation is that much more inaccessible, and re-searchers into the history of Portuguese expansion are constantly warned that virtu-ally all historical documents were destroyed in the Lisbon Earthquake of 1755. Fur-thermore, there is a marked lack of early texts and descriptions for the Portuguese-based

* I am grateful for useful comments on earlier versions of this paper by Paul Robertson, J. Clancy Clements, the editors of this volume and two anonymous reviewers. Any remaining er-rors or shortcomings are mine alone.

John Ladhams

Creoles, as Arends indeed noted in his article on the historical study of Creoles; how-ever, he did add that “although the paucity of diachronic studies on the Portuguese creoles may be partly due to the lack of early sources, the existence of early Java Creole Portuguese texts (…) shows that this is not the case for all languages in this group” (2002: 50). The question of the lack of early data is highlighted by the limited docu-mentation listed in the Appendix below, with virtually no texts dating from before the late 19th century. One exception, as Arends pointed out, is Java Creole Portuguese, where indeed one of the texts dates from as early as 1692.

Having outlined the problems, it should be said, however, that it is possible to trace the early history of Portuguese Creoles to some extent by other means, particu-larly using (socio)historical evidence, to establish whether they were formed gradually or abruptly. This paper, therefore, offers an exploratory overview of each of the Creoles in question, largely from the historical perspective, examining the available evidence, very little of which unfortunately can be of a linguistic nature; reference is made to the documentation found so far, as listed in the Appendix.

2. Upper Guinea Creoles

2.1 Cape Verde

The earliest clear evidence of Cape Verde Creole dates from 1672: John Fryer, in his ‘New Account of East India and Persia’, refers to the language of the people of the Cape Verde Islands as follows: “Their Speech is broken Portugal, as also is their Habit, imi-tating therein the Portugals” (Fryer 1909: 45). However, earlier in the same century (1627), Father Alonso de Sandoval, writing of Cartagena, on the Caribbean coast of South America, wrote that three types of slave were transported from Cape Verde: the bozales (uneducated, or first-generation Africans in the Americas), who came directly from the coast of the mainland; the ladinos (educated), who spoke Portuguese and were called criollos, not because they were born in Cape Verde but because they were brought up there from an early age, having been born bozales; and the naturales, who were born and baptised in Cape Verde (Sandoval 1987: 139). The question remains, however, as to whether the ladinos, who called themselves criollos (a term widely used in the Americas to refer to locally-born people), spoke metropolitan Portuguese or a creolised version. The issue is further complicated by the fact that Sandoval goes on to refer to the slaves coming from São Tomé as speaking a corrupt version of Portuguese (see below). Irrespective of this, António Carreira has examined all the available docu-mentation, and concluded that it is probable that Cape Verdean Creole had originated by 1550 (1972: 337–344; and, from a slightly different perspective, 1983). Also, as Dulce Fanha has suggested, the proportions of slaves to white Europeans probably would have meant that abrupt creolisation took place at an early stage in Cape Verde (1988: 293). However, the figures she quotes – 13,700 slaves and 100 or so whites – date

Formation of the Portuguese Creoles: gradual or abrupt?

from 1582, more than a century after initial settlement. Nevertheless, although there are no earlier population figures for Cape Verde, she reasonably assumes that slaves outnumbered whites by a large proportion considerably earlier than the 1580s.

The earliest descriptions of Cape Verde Creole, meanwhile, date only from the 1880s (see Appendix). While all of these, particularly Costa and Duarte (1886)*1, and Brito (1887)*, are remarkable detailed pieces of work for their time, they do show that key features (e.g. tense, mood and aspect markers, reduced inflection, etc.) are identi-cal in the present-day language.

Following the discovery, probably in 1460, and early settlement of Santiago and Fogo, in the southern, Sotavento, group of the Cape Verde Islands, the decision was made in 1472 to set up cotton plantations, for which a labour force of slaves imported from the African mainland was required (Baleno 1991: 156; Ladhams 2003: 16–19). Linguistic and historical research into the sources of these slaves shows that the major-ity (perhaps 75%) originated in the Mandinka- and Wolof-speaking areas, though the linguistic influence on Cape Verde Creole is relatively small (Ladhams 2003: 116–38). Another significant factor is that from a very early stage, female slaves were also im-ported, precisely for the purposes of procreation, and the first locally-born children must have been born by the beginning of the 16th century (2003: 179–81). In other words, it is likely that nativisation, in both the demographic and linguistic senses, took place at that time.

However, historians of Cape Verde are agreed that as from about the 1550s, a ma-jor economic and social crisis overtook the islands, the effect of which was particu-larly felt in the 17th century (Carreira 1972: ch. vi; Correia e Silva 1995).2 There would appear to have been two related causes – increasingly frequent attacks on Portuguese shipping and ports in Cape Verde by French, English and Dutch pirates, and the ina-bility of the Portuguese to compete with incursions on their trade in West Africa by the same European nations. The results of this crisis were as follows: a) with the severe decline in trade, virtually no new slaves were imported into Cape Verde for use on the islands, the few slaves that were acquired on the mainland being re-exported to the Americas; b) since subsistence agriculture in Cape Verde had been in large part di-rected towards providing supplies for trade shipping, what crops were still produced were then grown simply to satisfy local needs; and c) meanwhile, with the reduced trading market on the Guinea Coast, the only cash crop in Cape Verde – cotton – con-sequently declined, but not as much as might have been expected, since other Euro-pean traders were keen to acquire cotton and cloths woven locally for use in exchange for slaves and gold on the African mainland. As far as the acculturation of the African population in the Cape Verde islands is concerned, the crisis meant that with no new

1. References marked with an asterisk are to pre-1900 texts, and are listed in the Appendix.2. The history of the Cape Verde Islands is fortunately very well documented, not only by Car-reira (1972), but particularly in the ongoing series of volumes of the História Geral de Cabo Verde - Albuquerque and Santos (1989), Santos (1995, 2002).

John Ladhams

slaves at all being imported after about 1600, a wholly nativised creole society arose, and with the white population declining, there was considerably less contact between the two communities. Another significant effect of the crisis was the fact that many slaves on Santiago took advantage of the insecurity at the time of pirate attacks to flee into the hinterland; this is examined in some detail by Carreira (1972: Chapter ix).

However, by the 19th century, two varieties of Cape Verdean Creole were becom-ing discernable: Sotavento and Barlavento, corresponding to the southern and north-ern island groupings respectively. It is reasonably clear that since the former is plainly more basilectal than the latter, Barlavento creole is a later development, based on So-tavento creole, and heavily influenced by European Portuguese. This followed the rapid increase in the mixed population of the Barlavento islands from the early 19th century onwards, particularly with the arrival of relatively large numbers of (white) Portuguese convicts. Until that time, the population of the northern islands had been very small – for the first century and a half of settlement there had been virtually no permanent residents. Whether this constitutes a case of decreolisation is a moot point. My own opinion is that Barlavento Creole is a later development from the basilectal variety in Sotavento, and the shift towards standard European Portuguese was possibly brought about by the increasing social mobility for the non-European population in the Barlavento islands, even before the abolition of slavery. On the other hand, there are discernable differences between the various islands within the two groupings. Bar-tens-Adawomu (1999)3 even goes as far as to imply that each inhabited island has a separate variety, but this is perhaps overstating the case; Veiga (1982) makes a detailed comparative description of all the varieties of Cape Verdean Creole, and comes to the conclusion that the only valid differentiation would be between Sotavento and Bar-lavento. Lopes da Silva (1957) is largely of the same opinion, albeit from a Eurocentric perspective, while Cardoso (1989) does note some minor differences in the São Nico-lau variety of Barlavento Creole.

Therefore, despite the lack of linguistic data before the 1880s, it is possible to sug-gest that the formation and early development of Cape Verde Creole was not gradual, but relatively abrupt, for several reasons: a) (biological) nativisation took place at a very early stage, probably at around the beginning of the 16th century, and conse-quently linguistic nativisation (creolisation) must have soon followed; b) no new slaves were imported after around 1600, and therefore there was no renewed linguistic influ-ence from African languages; and c) by this time, there was much less contact between the white and slave communities, and therefore less linguistic influence on the Creole from the Portuguese ‘superstrate’.4 However, the situation did change from the 18th century onwards in the Barlavento islands, where a much ‘lighter’ Creole developed

3. Also Bartens (2000).4. There is ample historical evidence for this scenario to be found in Albuquerque and Santos (1989), and Santos (1995, 2002); also in a number of contributions to Lang et al. (2006).


through greater contact between the European and non-European populations – more likely a case of decreolisation, rather than gradual development.

2.2 Guinea-Bissau

Over recent years, there has been some discussion about the exact relationship be-tween Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau Creoles, since their distinct similarities would indicate that one is the development of the other. It is now generally believed that Guinea-Bissau Creole was formed by so-called ‘lançados’, or white renegades, who moved to the mainland from Cape Verde and set themselves up as traders and, impor-tantly from the point of view of language, cohabited with African women and raised families, whose children almost certainly used the Portuguese pidgin/creole as a first or primary language (see for example Couto 1994: 13–44). Historical data on this is sparse, but the formation of this Guinea-Bissau Creole would probably have taken place in the mid to late 16th century.5

The earliest surviving references to the language date from 1684 and 1694, and in the latter, the language is actually referred to as ‘crioulo’ (see Ladhams 2006: 101–2, 1.3 & 1.5). In 1696, there is the earliest text in this Creole – Fr. Vitoriano Portuense (1696)* -, which consists of just four words:

(1) Agora mi esta sabe now I be good ‘Now I feel good’

What may be noted is that:a. the 1st person singular personal pronoun is derived from the emphatic form, rath-

er than the normal subject form (mi for ‘eu’);b. the verb is in the 3rd person singular form, instead of the 1st person singular (esta

for ‘estou’);c. the adjectival complement sabe (good, well, fine) is in fact the 3rd person singular,

present tense of the verb saber (to taste). This use of sabe as an adjective is still very frequent in present-day Guinea-Bissau Creole.

In other words, albeit at least a century after the probable formation of the language, but more than 300 years before the present day, there are clearly marked features iden-tical with the modern Creole. While some key features, such as TMA markers, are not present in this early text, it may be assumed that the Creole was formed relatively abruptly. As this is not a plantation situation, with a continuing influx of imported slaves over an extended period of time, any changes or development of the language which may have taken place over the centuries would have been the result of adstrate

5. For a more detailed examination of Guinea-Bissau Creole, in the context of West African Pidgin Portuguese, see Ladhams (2006).

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influence from local African languages such as Balanta or Mandinka. However, a com-parison between present-day Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau Creoles shows that both in terms of the syntax and lexicon there has been little in the way of change as a result of adstrate influence. Indeed, the two languages are still mutually comprehensible, de-spite centuries of separate development.6

This is further reinforced by the fact that the earliest description of Guinea-Bissau Creole, Bertrand-Bocandé (1849)*, gives an account of key features (the TMA system, lack of nominal inflection, personal pronouns, etc.) identical with the modern lan-guage (see Ladhams 2006: 95 for details).

3. Gulf of Guinea Creoles

3.1 São Tomé

Once again, research into the formation and development of São Tomé Creole, as with all the Gulf of Guinea Creoles, is hampered by the lack of early linguistic data. The earliest true description of São Tomé Creole, Schuchardt (1882a)*, which incidentally is Schuchardt’s first published description of any Creole, is fairly sketchy, but it shows no differences from the modern language. A much more detailed description, with an extensive vocabulary, Negreiros (1895)*, again shows the language has not changed in its basic features over the last 100 years or so.

In 1766, there is a very significant reference to the languages spoken on São Tomé (and Príncipe) in a detailed report on the current situation on the islands by a Portu-guese official, Gaspar Pinheiro da Câmara:7

Hé de saber, que a gente natural destas ilhas tem lingoa sua e completa, com pre-nuncia labeal, mas de que me não consta haver inscripção alguma; e hé certo que todos sabem falar a portuguesa, não sendo negros do mato, ou novamente regata-dos, alem dos muitos que falão a lingoa franca, ao menos na parte que baste para o comercio com os estrangeiros. (Neves 1989: 230).[One should know that the people native to these islands have a complete lan-guage of their own, pronounced labially, but which I understand has never been written down; and it is certain that they can all speak Portuguese, except the ne-gros in the bush, or newly traded, as well as the many who speak the lingua franca, at least that much which suffices for trade with foreigners.]

6. On the question of diffusion, or otherwise, in the Portuguese-based Creoles, see Ladhams (forthcoming b).7. Lisbon, Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino, S. Tomé, Caixa 10, doc. 93; Neves (1989: 228–31). Câmara also gives an interesting description of the social segregation of the slaves from their European masters (Neves 1989: 231).


The first language referred to is clearly Creole, “pronounced labially” and which had “never been written down”; it is unlikely to be an ancestral African language, since many generations had passed since the last imports of slaves, from several sources, had taken place. The second is standard Portuguese, showing that at least in the mid 18th century, a majority of the population was bilingual. This fact is not only largely un-known, but also of great significance in terms of creole formation. If it can be shown that this bilingualism on the part of Creole speakers was widespread, as I believe, and not only among speakers of Portuguese-based Creoles, this would finally put to rest the idea that creole formation is the result of limited access to the lexifier. This idea has been explored from a slightly different perspective by McWhorter (2005), and is fur-ther developed in Ladhams (forthcoming a). However, the text quoted above goes on to state that many spoke the “lingua franca”, particularly in “trade with foreigners”: this can be none other than a variety of West African Pidgin Portuguese, still used as a trading language at that time, but which is now extinct (see Ladhams 2006, also Huber [this volume]).

As for the relevant facts from the early social history of São Tomé8, the Portuguese discovered the uninhabited island, probably around 1472. The ‘société d’habitation’ phase must have lasted less than 30 years, because by around 1507 there were already 2,000 slaves on the island, as opposed to 1,000 white settlers.9 Though a few sugar plantations existed at this time, it is clear that there was full-scale production by the 1520s, with the concomitant increase in the slave population.

Authorisation to import slaves from the African mainland had been granted in 1485, specifically from the so-called Slave Rivers, in the delta of the River Niger. How-ever, in 1516 limits were placed on the trade from here, and trade was banned com-pletely in 1553. The slaves from this area were speakers of Edo, and this is reflected in the Creole, where there is a considerable number of lexical items which can be derived from that African language.10 The other source of slaves for São Tomé was the Congo and northern Angola.11 Imports of Bantu-speaking slaves from this area began in the 1490s, and continued until the end of the 16th century, when the slave trade declined considerably. By this time the vast majority of the slaves brought to São Tomé were for re-export, and therefore the import of plantation slaves for the island extended only for the 100-year period between around 1490 and 1590.

Another significant factor in the early history of the plantation society on São Tomé was a shift in the social pattern of the slave communities from one of relative proximity to the white slave-owners, whose paternalistic attitude meant at least the

8. Once again, the history of the Gulf of Guinea Islands is well documented, at least until the end of the 18th century, particularly in Garfield (1992), Serafim (2000), and Neves (1989).9. Fernandes (1940: 122); see Ladhams (2003) for a detailed account of the early history of São Tomé.10. See Ryder (1969), Garfield (1992), Ladhams (2003: 144–47, 2008).11. See e.g. Birmingham (1966), Garfield (1992).

John Ladhams

slaves were reasonably well fed and clothed, as described in documentation from the 1550s, to much more rigorous conditions, including, significantly, virtual isolation from the white communities, and an imposed self-sufficiency. This is known from re-ports by Carmelite priests, which date from the 1580s (see Ladhams 2003: 24–6). Therefore, by the end of the 16th century, little more than 100 years after the initial settlement, the identifiably separate slave communities had been formed on São Tomé, and were no longer increasing with any further influx of slaves from the African main-land. Furthermore, there is evidence that family formation – and this included of course (demographic) nativisation – was a feature of the slave communities from very early on. Indeed, as early as 1515, manumission was granted to both the female slaves and their children; these ‘forros’, or freed slaves, soon constituted a separate commu-nity on the island, a denomination which still remains to this day, and it surely no co-incidence that São Tomé Creole is known by its speakers as ‘Forro’ (Ladhams 2003: 181–2, 189–90).

From the beginning of the 17th century onwards, there was a gradual decline in sugar production, mostly because of improved production of the crop by the Portu-guese in Brazil. Indeed, a number of linguists, including Holm (e.g. 1987, 1992) and McWhorter (e.g. 2005), have stated that the Portuguese completely abandoned São Tomé and the other Gulf of Guinea Islands at this time, with the result that access to the Portuguese language was lost, and hence the Creole(s) developed independently and indeed ‘radicalised’, i.e. became further removed from standard Portuguese than, say, other Portuguese-based Creoles. While the latter is true, and the Gulf of Guinea Creoles are more ‘radical’ than Cape Verde Creole, for example, the Portuguese defi-nitely had not abandoned the islands, with the exception of Annobon (see below).12 Indeed, as a strong interpretation of the quotation above would indicate, by the mid 18th century, the majority of the black population was bilingual in both Creole and standard Portuguese. So much for limited access.

Finally, evidence that all the Gulf of Guinea Creoles were formed relatively early on, and probably not gradually, is to be found by comparing all four Creoles to deter-mine ‘proto-creole’ features, because it is known that slaves were normally brought initially to São Tomé, and thence distributed to the other islands of Príncipe and An-nobon no later than the end of the 16th century, and in the latter case much earlier (see below). This examination reveals that all four Gulf of Guinea Creoles have such dis-tinctive features as the double negative construction (Ladhams 2003: 90–91), identical TMA markers (2003: 79–84), etc.13 In other words, these features could not have de-veloped gradually in four separate places, but they must have been present in the pro-to-creole formed and developed by the mid 16th century.

12. This is confirmed in Serafim (2000) and Neves (1989).13. See Ladhams (forthcoming b).


3.2 Príncipe

The background to the formation and development of Príncipe Creole follows a very similar pattern to that of São Tomé. The earliest reference to Príncipe Creole is that quoted above, by Gaspar Pinheiro da Câmara in 1766; the only pre-1900 description is the very brief one by Schuchardt (1889a)*, which shows no differences in linguistic features from the present-day language. Indeed, any comparative study of the Príncipe and São Tomé Creoles will show only slight phonological differences, and a greater preponderance of Edo-derived lexical items in Príncipe, features which can be ascribed to the fact that for a short period in the early 16th century, some Edo-speaking slaves were imported to Príncipe directly from the Slave Rivers area, besides those redistrib-uted from São Tomé, originating in the Congo/Angola region as well as the Slave Riv-ers area (Ladhams 2003, 2008). It seems likely, therefore, that the Príncipe Creole was also formed some time in the 16th century, in large part derived from the Creole on São Tomé, and has not developed modified or separate features since that time.

3.3 Annobon

The history of settlement on the remote island of Annobon differs somewhat from that of the other Gulf of Guinea Islands, in that following initial discovery and very small-scale settlement at the beginning of the 16th century, the tiny island was deemed to be unproductive, and totally neglected by the Portuguese14, as indeed by the Spanish, who assumed responsibility for the island in 1778, until independence as part of Equa-torial Guinea in 1968.

The earliest reference to Annobon Creole being spoken on the island is by the Spanish Capuchin friar Juan de Santiago, who landed on the island in 1649 and found just one white Portuguese overseer and some 500 slaves:

Todos entendian y hablaban la lengua portuguesa aunque imperfectam.te pero de suerte que sin muçha dificultad se dexaban entender los que menos la sabian. (Bal 1975: 121).

[They all understood and spoke the Portuguese language albeit imperfectly but in such a way that those who knew it less could be understood without much diffi-culty.]

The only pre-1900 descriptions of the Creole, Schuchardt (1888c)* and Vila (1891)* are relatively sketchy, and in no respect differ from the information available on the language today.

14. See Caldeira (2006) for a fascinating account of the social consequences of this abandon-ment, with implications for the linguistic development.

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However, the current sociolinguistic situation on Annobon has been described in some detail by De Granda (1985: 141–156). He distinguishes four different codes among the population of approximately 2,000:1. Annobon Creole, spoken as a first language by all;2. Spanish, the official language of Equatorial Guinea, with only 2 native speakers in

1985 (a priest and a doctor), though the language is used by local administrators and in (primary) education on the island, and has been acquired by a relatively large proportion of the male population as a secondary language, through educa-tion and/or emigration to elsewhere in Equatorial Guinea;

3. Pidgin English, in the variety widely used on Bioko, the main island of Equatorial Guinea, has been acquired by those men who have returned from emigration there, and is regarded as having considerable prestige as a medium for commu-nity solidarity;

4. the fourth code, perhaps surprisingly, is Portuguese, which has been retained for liturgical use in the form of memorised texts probably since the 18th century, the last occasion when Portuguese priests were present on the island. This register is maintained and passed on by the ‘metiscolo’ [<Ptg. mestre de escola – schoolmas-ter], who acts as a substitute priest on the island. Otherwise, standard Portuguese is neither used nor understood on Annobon.

Significantly, therefore, the bilingual situation described as existing in São Tomé and Príncipe in the 18th century, remains to this day on Annobon, despite the extremely limited access to standard Portuguese since the initial settlement 500 years ago, as in-deed may be the case elsewhere (Ladhams forthcoming b).

Also, given that the Creole has not changed over the last 100 years, and that throughout the island’s history there has been virtually no outside influence either from standard Portuguese or more importantly from African languages other than those of the initial cohort of slaves in the early 16th century, one can assume that the early for-mation of the language was not gradual, and that any subsequent development was not only slight, but also internal. In addition, comparison with the other Gulf of Guinea Creoles shows no significant differences, at least as far as syntax and lexicon are con-cerned, and for the reasons outlined above, Annobon Creole must be considerably close to the hypothetical proto-creole in the Gulf of Guinea (Ladhams forthcoming a).

3.4 Angolar

The only Portuguese-based maroon creole, Angolar, is spoken by a community on São Tomé descended from a group of fugitive slaves who are believed to have escaped from the sugar plantations into the dense forest of the mountainous interior of the island, at some time in the 16th century. Their name derives from the survivors of a wreck, on the remote southern coast of São Tomé, of a ship carrying slaves from Angola. These survivors are believed to have joined up with the fugitive slaves in the interior, and


together they formed the basis of the Angolar community. The linguistic consequenc-es are that there is considerably more Bantu influence in Angolar, notably from Kim-bundu, as shown by the large number of lexical items derived from that language (Maurer 1992, 1995).

Since the maroon community deliberately isolated themselves from the outset, and had virtually no contact with the outside world, and other languages, until the 20th century, one can expect there to have been little development of their language in that time. This is normally true of any maroon community, with the exception perhaps of Saramaccan, which is known to have developed gradually over a period of 100 years or more, with parallel linguistic consequences. This idea is supported by the fact that, apart from the greater degree of Bantu influence on the lexicon, the language differs very little from the other Gulf of Guinea Creoles.15

4. Asian Creoles

4.1 India

The history of Portuguese settlement in India dates back to the very beginning of the 16th century, with the establishment of a fort in Cochin. Their presence was extended to very many places along the coast of the sub-continent, and the administrative centre for the whole of Portuguese control in Asia was set up in Goa. Through many vicissi-tudes, the Portuguese gradually lost control of most of their settlements in India, until they were reduced to the region of Goa, and the small enclaves further north of Diu and Daman; these in turn were taken over by Indian forces in 1961. While the exact circumstances are relatively unclear, it is known that mixed-race Catholic communi-ties arose in perhaps all the Portuguese settlements in India, as a result of marriages between Portuguese soldiers and local women, who were converted to Catholicism. Their children formed the basis of these separate communities, which tended to be isolated from Indian society, because of their religious and social status. It is believed that their Creole language, normally known as Indo-Portuguese, arose within the first generation of children of these mixed marriages, and was maintained as a symbol of their community identity. On the other hand, Baker (1997: 104) suggests that these Indo-Portuguese communities were exceptions to his theory that Creole-speakers are not failed learners of the lexifier language, but rather they are identifying a separate Creole language as a target for inter-ethnic communication. Indo-Portuguese is an exception, he believes, because the members of the communities are in this case at-tempting to acquire (standard) Portuguese as a symbol of their religious and social identity. However, as shown below, most members of these Indo-Portuguese

15. See Lorenzino (1998) for a detailed comparison between Angolar and São Tomé Creole.

John Ladhams

communities did in fact acquire Portuguese as a language of their religion, and at the same time used the more basilectal variety of Creole as their vernacular.

If the data for the African Creoles is meagre, there is even less information on the Asian Creoles, and indeed less linguistic – and for that matter, socio-historical – research has been carried out on these languages. In India, varieties of the Portuguese-based Cre-ole appear to have been spoken in no less than 47 places (including two in what is now Bangladesh), according to Schuchardt (1889b)*.16 Nowadays, the language has probably survived in only four of these places: Diu, Daman, Korlai and Cochin, and only Korlai has been sufficiently documented to be of value here.17 Nevertheless, there are very brief 19th-century descriptions of five varieties (including Diu) by Schuchardt (1882b, 1883a, 1883b, 1889c)*, as well as more detailed early 20th-century descriptions by Dalgado of the Creole varieties in Daman (first published in 1903), the ‘Northern’ district, including Bombay and Korlai (first published in 1906), and in Negapattnam (first published in 1917), now long since extinct (all three studies now collected in Dalgado 1998b). The problem with all these descriptions is that they all seem to be based on an acrolectal, re-ligious register of the particular varieties; those studies by Schuchardt are based on infor-mation received from local informants, normally Portuguese priests, and Dalgado him-self was a priest for many years in India. This is particularly apparent when one compares Dalgado’s description of ‘Northern’ Indo-Portuguese, with Clements’ recent account of the variety in Korlai (Clements 1995). Clements has indeed identified a number of gram-matical features in Korlai which indicate a massive shift in the language towards the local adstrate, Marathi (1990, 1995). The most significant of these is the shift in word order from SVO, typical of virtually all Creoles, as well as standard Portuguese, to SOV, char-acteristic of Marathi. Just when this shift took place is not at all clear: Clements (1995: 192–200) suggests that it has been a gradual process, with some changes taking place in the initial creolisation in the 17th century, which he believes to have been abrupt, from phonological evidence (1995: 92–96), while other changes are much more recent, reflecting increased social contact in Korlai with Marathi-speakers, increased bilingual-ism in Creole and Marathi, and the fact that Portuguese priests have not visited Korlai for 60 years or more.18 Meanwhile, Clements has also found traces of what he calls a ‘Parish Priest Register’, somewhat closer to standard Portuguese, still used by some members of the community in Korlai in formal contexts (Clements 1993). This discovery would seem to lend support to the theory outlined above that Creole-speakers are often bilin-gual (or diglossic) in both the standard lexifier, particularly in the religious or liturgical domains, and the Creole, used as a primary-language vernacular in all other contexts.

16. The list of place-names was transcribed by Hancock (1971: 520).17. However, work is in progress on Diu, and elsewhere in India (including Cochin and Can-nanore), by Hugo Cardoso (see Cardoso 2006), and on Daman, by J. Clancy Clements.18. Korlai (and neighbouring Chaul) were under Portuguese control only between 1594 and 1740, although a Portuguese-speaking priest was sent to Korlai from Goa during most of the subsequent period of time.


4.2 Sri Lanka

Portuguese control of parts of Sri Lanka began in 1517, and lasted until 1658, when the Portuguese were expelled from the island by the Dutch. Nevertheless, just as in India, a mixed-race Catholic community, speaking a variety of Creole Portuguese, and known to the Dutch as ‘Burghers’, remained in a number of places in Sri Lanka, and survive to this day, particularly in the Tamil-speaking areas of the North-East of the island, around Batticaloa and Trincomalee.19

While there appears to be much more documentary evidence for the use of Portu-guese Creole in Sri Lanka, the same problem arises as with the varieties spoken in In-dia: which register is being described? The first descriptions of Sri Lanka Creole date back to the early 19th century (see Appendix). From 1811 onwards a number of de-scriptions were published by Methodist missionaries working in Sri Lanka, as well as numerous translations of biblical and liturgical texts into the Creole. Without excep-tion, the register of these texts is quite acrolectal, and they probably represent the reli-gious variety of Creole, similar to the so-called ‘Parish Priest Register’ in Korlai, as described by Clements. In addition, Dalgado’s detailed description of Sri Lanka Creole (1998a), first published in 1900, similarly reflects the fact that the author was a priest working for many years in both Sri Lanka and India, in that the same type of acrolectal register is described.

Meanwhile, research in the 20th century has shown that the variety of Creole still surviving in Sri Lanka as a vernacular is distinctly basilectal, and as in India, it has shifted considerably towards the adstrate Tamil language. So much so that, on the basis of research by Ian Smith, Bakker (2003: 117–18) has now classified Sri Lanka Creole as a type of mixed language he calls “converted languages”, with Tamil syntax and Portu-guese lexicon. Smith’s published research (especially 1979a, 1979b, 1984) suggests that this shift, across a wide range of linguistic features, has taken place since the departure of the Portuguese in the 17th century, simply because of the reduced access to standard Portuguese, but he does also point out that the religious register of Portuguese has survived with a few elderly speakers to recent times.

While neither Clements’ scenario for Creole Portuguese in India, nor Smith’s for Sri Lanka are based on detailed evidence, it would seem more likely that Clements is correct in suggesting that both registers of Portuguese developed simultaneously from the outset, the more formal religious register being maintained more or less intact for liturgical use or in other formal contexts, while the vernacular basilectal Creole was

19. An interesting perspective on the Portuguese settlement of Sri Lanka from the non-Euro-pean point of view is outlined in De Silva (1994), based on contemporary Sri Lankan documen-tation. It reveals very little on the question of language as such, but it is quite informative on relative attitudes.

John Ladhams

not only used in all other domains, but over the centuries has shifted radically towards the local adstrate.20

4.3 Malacca

The city of Malacca on the Malay Peninsula was under Portuguese control between 1511 and 1640, when the city fell to the Dutch; however, a Portuguese Creole-speaking Catholic community has remained there to this day. The socio-historical background to this Creole, known locally as Papia Kristang, is similar to that of other former Por-tuguese communities in Asia: the Creole is believed to have formed with the first gen-eration of children from mixed marriages between Portuguese soldiers and local women, but to what extent the language developed or changed since that time is un-clear. Another factor which needs to clarified is the extent to which the various Creoles in Asia, including Papia Kristang, arose from a single Portuguese Pidgin, or whether each Creole represents a separate development (but see Baxter 1988: 4–5; Clements 2000; Ladhams forthcoming b). This would involve a detailed examination of the amount of adstrate influence in each Creole – in the case of Malacca, that from Malay, a point also made by Baxter (1988: 220).

The only pre-1900 description of Papia Kristang is by Coelho (1886: 718–23)*, and is of the Singapore variety. It remains to be seen whether this variety still exists, or if it has become absorbed in the rapid expansion and development of that city; also, a useful detailed comparison could be made to ascertain the differences, if any, between the Malacca and Singapore varieties at the end of the 19th century.

4.4 Java

It is here that (at last) there is a more substantial amount of early linguistic data, but having said that, there are problems. The most significant text dates from the late 17th century – Meister (1692: 215–22)* – and consists of a 4-page dialogue between two soldiers.21 However, the orthography is such that the text is very difficult to interpret, despite a German translation by Meister. Nevertheless, an initial analysis shows that there appear to be a number of pidgin features at least: zero copula (instead of the copula te(m), common to most of the Portuguese Asian Creoles), a lack of nominal inflection, etc. What does not seem to be present are any of the characteristic features of the Asian Creoles, such as the possessive marker, limited verb inflection, etc. The other text of interest here is the vocabulary and phrases in Anon (1780)*. The phrases yield very little of significance in terms of syntax, at least from a preliminary study,

20. Clements (pc 2007) emphasises that the “religious register” was used when talking with the priest, and should be considered a version of the creole, with influence from standard Portuguese.21. This text is referred to in Arends (2002: 50) as being an exception to the perceived lack of early data in the Iberian Creoles.


while the 200 pages or so of vocabulary require a detailed examination to assess the influence from other Asian languages such as Malay. However, Wallace, having made a thorough study of all the data available, makes the “provisional claim that earlier varieties of Portuguese spoken in Jakarta are little different” from the current variety (1978: 353).22

The situation is further complicated by the unusual historical background to the Creole in Java. The community of Tugu, nowadays a suburb of Jakarta, still retains a separate cultural identity as Catholics, to some extent bilingual in Jakarta Malay and Portuguese Creole, though the number of speakers of the latter has been greatly re-duced. The curious fact is that neither Java or the main city, Batavia (now Jakarta), was ever settled or occupied by the Portuguese. However, following the founding of the city of Batavia by the Dutch in 1619, considerable numbers of Asian ‘Portuguese’ were brought there “as slaves or workers” by the Dutch, from the Portuguese colonies else-where in Asia, including, probably, India, Sri Lanka and Malacca. It appears that there was some intermarriage between Dutch soldiers and Asian ‘Portuguese’ women, and their children no doubt added to the separate Christian community, which by the 1660s had moved to its current location in Tugu (Wallace 1978: 341–43). From the linguistic point of view, it would seem likely, but it is no means certain, that the origi-nal ‘Portuguese’ (or ‘Mardijkers’ as they were known to the Dutch) brought with them a Portuguese pidgin, rather than a fully-fledged Creole, which would explain the pidg-in-like feature in Meister’s text from the end of the 17th century. Certainly by the end of the 19th century, and Schuchardt’s detailed description of the language (1890)*, it was an established Creole, and appears to be very similar to the present-day vernacular (as described in Wallace 1978).

Elsewhere in the Indonesian archipelago, on Flores, in the Moluccas and in East Timor, there are fossilised survivals of what must have been a variety of Portuguese Creole, but the data is so reduced, that it is impossible to assess whether a gradual process of creolisation took place or not. (See França (2003) for Flores and the Moluc-cas, and Baxter (1990) for Timor.)

4.5 Macao

Macao was first settled by the Portuguese in the 1550s, and was controlled by them until the territory’s return to China in 1999. In those 450 years, a Portuguese Creole certainly arose early on, and continued to be spoken extensively until well into the 20th century. However, there is very little data, either historical or linguistic, to show

22. Hancock (1975) explores the origins of the Portuguese Asian Creoles, including Tugu, and comes to the conclusion that they arose from the diffusion of a Portuguese maritime pidgin, which in turn had originated in Portugal itself. However, I feel that more recent research reveals that there is a much greater diversity among the Asian Creoles for this theory to be maintained (see Ladhams forthcoming b).

John Ladhams

how the language developed, and how gradual that development was. The earliest texts and descriptions date from the late 19th century (see Appendix), by which time the Creole was already in decline. Nevertheless, a number of studies were made by Graci-ete Batalha (e.g. 1959, 1974, 1988), and she drew a clear distinction between Macao Portuguese and the other Portuguese Asian Creoles, in that the external influence was much more widespread, leading her to believe that the early form of the language was more of a pidgin or lingua franca. Significantly, she suggested that there were not only influences from Malay, possibly via Malacca, but because the early settlers in Macao included not only European Portuguese, albeit in quite small numbers, but also Portu-guese Asians and even African slaves, she was able to detect linguistic influence from considerably further afield (Batalha 1988: 6–11). However, the evidence is somewhat unclear, and it is probably the case that, given that the early settlement by non-Chinese in Macao was so multicultural, a pidgin was used for interethnic communication, and this in turn, at some point in its history, became nativised as a Creole spoken by the mixed descendants of the original settlers. One thing appears to be certain: there was no shift towards the local adstrate language, Cantonese (Batalha 1988: 11).23 In other words, rather than developing into a separate living language, but with a major shift towards a local, more powerful language, as was the case in Korlai and Sri Lanka, in-stead, Macao Creole gradually died out under pressure not only from standard Portu-guese, but particularly from Cantonese, because the Creole speakers could more easily identify themselves with the surrounding Cantonese-speaking community, and felt no need to affirm a separate cultural, religious and, above all, linguistic identity.

5. Conclusions

Despite the lack of early linguistic data, it is possible to draw a number of conclusions about the Portuguese-based Creoles. In the first place, it seems unlikely that the Afri-can Creoles, four of which are Plantation Creoles, were formed gradually over an ex-tended period of time. This is because there was not a prolonged period of constant renewal of the slave population on the islands, but rather ‘nativisation’ (in Arends’ sense) took place relatively early. Also, Guinea-Bissau Creole derived from that of Cape Verde, and the Creoles on Príncipe and Annobon developed out of São Tomé Creole, so much so that the Upper Guinea and Gulf of Guinea Creoles respectively are mutually comprehensible. However, the separate development began very early on – probably no more than 50 years after initial settlement in every case, and therefore any gradual development of any one particular Creole would be immediately apparent, which is not the case. A third factor is that there is documentary evidence that there were locally-born children at a very early stage in the colonisation of the islands and

23. However, a recent article by Ansaldo and Matthews (2004) does find some evidence of the influence of Cantonese.


hence there was no need to have a constant influx of slaves to replace those who died or were too old or sick to be productive. In other words, on strictly historical and de-mographic evidence, it is possible to say that creolisation in the Portuguese Plantation Creoles was relatively abrupt, and not gradual, as was the case with Sranan, Haitian and Mauritian Creoles, for example. It might be objected that extra-linguistic evidence is insufficient24; Arends (1993, 1995) relied both on linguistic and demographic data to show that creolisation of Sranan was very gradual. However, John Singler’s work on the French Creoles in the Caribbean (1992, 1995, 1996) relied almost totally on demo-graphic evidence to support his gradualist theory. Incidentally, based on that evidence, Singler has repeatedly reaffirmed his belief that where there is early (demographic) nativisation, the developing Creole is less ‘radical’ than with those where nativisation is gradual, over a prolonged period of time (1992, 1995, 1996, 2006). It is true that in the Creoles he has studied, this does appear to be the case, but this idea does not seem to apply to the Portuguese-based Plantation Creoles. Whatever criteria one uses, it is clear that the Gulf of Guinea Creoles are considerably more ‘radical’ than Cape Verde Creole – see for example Parkvall (2000) -, but on both island groups, nativisation was equally rapid. Clements and Mahoob (2000: 464–5) suggest that the difference was due to a continuing presence of Portuguese settlers in the Cape Verde Islands, compared with an “exodus of large numbers of Portuguese settlers to Brazil and elsewhere” from the Gulf of Guinea Islands “in the early 16th century”(465). However, there is abso-lutely no evidence that this so-called mass exodus took place at all (see Garfield 1992, and Neves 1989). On the contrary, as indicated above, there was very much a continu-ing presence of Portuguese settlers, plantation owners and administrators right through to the 20th century, at least on São Tomé and Príncipe, as opposed to Anno-bon. This still leaves an unanswered question as to why one group of Creoles should be more radical than another, but it could well be to do with the differences in the respec-tive plantation systems, and/or the greater or lesser sense of community identity.

This latter factor is, I believe, crucial in tracing not only how Creoles arose, but also more importantly why they developed at all. The issue is made that more complex be-cause, as hypothesized above, many Portuguese Creole speakers may have been to some extent bilingual in Creole and standard Portuguese, and this must have been the case from the outset, because access to the lexifier was, in some cases, largely removed very early on (e.g. Annobon, parts of India, Sri Lanka, etc.). Baker (1995, 1997) has actually made a link between the gradual development of Creoles and the idea that Creole-speak-ers are targeting not the lexifier language but ‘their own’ Creole language, as an indica-tion of community solidarity. However, this does not mean to say that one necessarily follows from the other, as the case seems to be that all the Portuguese Plantation Creoles

24. Indeed, some years ago, in connection with the origins of the Portuguese element in the Suriname Creoles, both Jacques Arends and myself were accused of (subjectively) interpreting the historical evidence at the expense of the linguistic evidence (Smith 1999). See Ladhams (1999) for a response to this accusation.

John Ladhams

arose relatively abruptly, and yet their speakers retained these languages as their com-munity’s vernacular. If they were only targeting the lexifier, but with ‘limited access’, how did some of them come to be bilingual in that lexifier and the Creole?25

So far, I have largely referred to just the Plantation Creoles, so what are the conclu-sions about the others? As for the only Portuguese Maroon Creole, Angolar, because the community was formed quite rapidly, and maroons necessarily separate them-selves from outside influence, linguistic or otherwise, one can safely say that their lan-guage has been subject to only internal development, and it is still relatively close to the São Tomé Creole it derived from. Guinea-Bissau Creole too, having derived from Cape Verde Creole in the 16th century, must have changed little over time, because it is still strikingly similar to its parent Creole, despite the adstrate influence from a number of African languages.

As for the Asian Creoles, the most striking fact is that at least two of them, Korlai Indo-Portuguese and Sri Lanka Creole have shifted radically towards the local adstrates, so much so that the latter has been classified as a type of mixed language. However, this has not always been the case. Macao Creole in particular has resisted outside linguistic influence26, possibly at the expense of its own survival, and it could well be that the same occurred with some varieties of Portuguese Creole in India and Indonesia.

Clearly much research remains to be done, particularly for the Portuguese Asian Creoles, but it could be the case that more early linguistic data will yet be uncovered for any of the Portuguese-based Creoles and could reinforce the historical evidence outlined above. It is also clear that a combination of factors must be taken into account when investigating the early development of creole languages – certainly the linguistic data, where it exists; the historical data, which can indeed be crucial in determining the development of the languages; and also what I would call ‘attitudinal’ factors, which could well determine not only why a creole language exists in the first place, and why it still exists to the present day, but also the relationship with the lexifier, and the extent to which bilingualism (or diglossia) exists or has developed.

As a tribute to Jacques Arends’ work, it is hoped that this paper can add a new dimension on research into gradual creolisation, and may lead to further development of this important theory.

25. Two reviewers were somewhat sceptical about an earlier version of my hypothesis of (lim-ited) bilingualism/diglossia among creole-speakers. Admittedly, much research remains to be done, but other factors need to be taken into account, such as why no Portuguese Creole seem to have emerged in Goa (or in Brazil, for that matter), and why, in the case of Indo-Portuguese, some of the 19th-century glossaries for use in India and Sri Lanka published by English Protes-tant missionaries contained virtually standard Portuguese, while other glossaries and descrip-tions covered creolised Portuguese.26. But see note 22 above.


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John Ladhams

Appendix

Texts and Descriptions (pre-1900)

Cape Verde– Coelho (1880: 4–24) [Descriptions of Creole varieties from Santo Antão and San-

tiago Islands, with letters, phrases and riddles.]– Costa and Duarte (1886) [Detailed description, with parallel translations of a bibli-

cal text in 6 dialects.]– Brito (1887) [Detailed description, with proverbs, songs, phrases, and short vocabu-

lary.]– Schuchardt (1888b) [Background and bibliography.]– Teixeira, Cónego A. da Costa (1894: 136–7, 148–51) [Literary texts from Boa Vis-

ta Island, with brief grammatical sketch.]

Guinea-Bissau– Fr. Vitoriano Portuense (Ms., 1696)27 [4-word sentence (Mota 1974: 103)]– Bertrand-Bocandé (1849) [Grammatical outline.]– Coelho (1886: 706–9) [Reprints (from 1883 and 1885) of a fable and a comic song,

with a brief outline of the verbal system.]– Schuchardt (1888a) [Short description and texts (from Barros).]– Barros, Marcellino Marques de (1899) [Extensive description, including dialect

variation.]

São Tomé– Coelho (1882: 453–8) [Songs, proverbs. and a brief sketch of verb forms.]– Schuchardt (1882a) [Songs, proverbs, sentences and prayers, with brief grammati-

cal analysis.]– Negreiros, António de Almada (1895) [Grammatical description and extensive

Portuguese – Creole vocabulary list.]

Príncipe– Schuchardt (1889a) [Songs, prayers, words and sentences, with outline of gram-

mar.]

27. Bispo D. Frei Vitoriano Portuense 1696 Relação do feruorozo baptismo que pedio e recebeo o venturozo D. Pedro Primeiro Rej Catolico da Ilha de Bissao; e noticia do augmento em que uaj a noua Cristandade de Guiné. Lisbon, Biblioteca de Ajuda, Códice 52-x-10 (nº57); Mota (1974: 97–109).


Annobon– Schuchardt (1888c) [Grammatical analysis, with data from Vila.]– Vila, Isidro (1891) [Short grammatical description.]

India– Schuchardt (1882b) [Cochin – dialogue, sermon and phrases, with grammatical

analysis.]– Schuchardt (1883a) [Diu – biblical translation, with parallel text in Sri Lanka Cre-

ole, dialogue and songs, with grammatical analysis.]– Schuchardt (1883b) [Mangalore – songs, biblical text and dialogue, with brief anal-

ysis.]– Schuchardt (1889b) [General background survey of extent of Indo-Portuguese.]– Schuchardt (1889c) [Mahe – songs; Cannanore – sentences.]

Sri Lanka– Berrenger (1811) [Grammatical description, with dialogues and phrases.]– Callaway (1818) [Vocabulary (80 pages), useful phrases (48 pages), and ‘familiar

dialogues’ (22 pages), in English, Sinhalese and Indo-Portuguese.]– Newstead, Robert (1818) [Translations of hymns.]– Fox, William Buckley (1819) [Extensive Indo-Portuguese – English – Sinhalese vo-

cabulary list, with short grammatical outline.]– Teza, Emilio (1872) [Brief description (in Italian), largely based on Berrenger.]– ‘Nevill Manuscript’28 (1870s[?]) [40-page manuscript, in the British Library, con-

taining 1025 quatrains of Indo-Portuguese verse. Transcribed in Jackson (1990).– Coelho (1880: 30–41) [Background, bibliography, and reprint of earlier biblical

translation.]

Malacca– Coelho (1886: 718–23) [Singapore variety – phrases, with grammatical sketch.]

Java– Meister, Georg (1692: 215–22) [Dialogue of 33 sentences, with German transla-

tion.]– Anon. (1780) [Extensive list (120 pages) of words and phrases in Dutch – Malay –

Portuguese Creole.]– Schuchardt (1890) [Very detailed description, including transcripts of dialogue in

Meister (1692), and Anon. (1780).]

28. In the papers of Hugh Nevill, at the British Library, London.

John Ladhams

Macao– Coelho (1880: 41–45) [Outline of grammar, and 2 letters.]– Vasconcellos, J. Leite de (1892) [Short description, in French.]– França, Bento da (1897: 200–5) [Brief, disparaging description; letter, dated

1869.]

References for Appendix

Anon. 1780. Nieuwe Woordenschat. Batavia: Lodewyk Domenicus.Barros, M.M. 1899. O Guineense. Revista Lusitana 5: 174–181, 271–300.Berrenger. 1811. A grammatical arrangement on the method of learning the corrupted Portuguese

as spoken in India. Colombo: Government Press.Bertrand-Bocandé, M. 1849. De la langue créole de la Guinée portugaise. Bulletin de la Société

de Géographie de Paris, 3e. série.12: 73–77.Brito, A.P. 1887. Dialectos crioulos-portugueses. Apontamentos para a gramática do crioulo que

se fala na Ilha de Santiago de Cabo Verde. Boletim da Sociedade de Geographia de Lisboa, 7a. série, no. 10: 611–669.

Callaway, J. 1818. A vocabulary, with useful phrases and familiar dialogues, in the English, Portu-guese, and Cingalese languages. Colombo: Wesleyan Mission Press.

Coelho, F.A. 1880. Os dialectos românicos ou neo-latinos na África, Ásia e América. Lisbon: So-ciedade de Geographia de Lisboa.

Coelho, F.A. 1882 Os dialectos românicos ou neo-latinos na África, Ásia e América. Notas com-plementares. Boletim da Sociedade de Geographia de Lisboa, 3a. série.8: 451–478.

Coelho, F.A. 1886. Os dialectos românicos ou neo-latinos na África, Ásia e América. Novas notas complementares. Boletim da Sociedade de Geographia de Lisboa, 6a. série.12: 705–755.

Costa, J.V.B. and Duarte, C.J. 1886. O crioulo de Cabo Verde. Boletim da Sociedade de Geo-graphia de Lisboa, 6a. série.6: 325–388.

Fox, W.B. 1819. A dictionary in the Ceylon-Portuguese, Singhalese and English languages. Co-lombo: Wesleyan Mission Press.

França, B. 1897. Macau e seus habitantes. Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional.Jackson, K.D. 1990. Sing without shame. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Meister, G. 1692. Der Orientalisch-Indianische Kunst- und Lust-Gärtner. Dresden: Hekel.Mota, A.T. 1974. As Viagens do Bispo D. Frei Vitoriano Portuense à Guiné e a Cristianização dos

Reis de Bissau. Lisbon: Junta de Investigações Científicas do Ultramar.Negreiros, A.A. 1895. Historia ethnographica da Ilha de S. Thomé. Lisbon: José Bastos.Newstead, R. 1823. Cantigas por adoração público em lingoa Portuguesa de Ceylon. Colombo:

Officina Wesleyana.Schuchardt, H. 1882a. Über das Negerportugiesische von S. Thomé. Sitzungsberichte Wien 101:

889–917.Schuchardt, H. 1882b. Über das Indoportugiesische von Cochim. Sitzungsberichte Wien 102:

799–816.Schuchardt, H. 1883a. Über das Indoportugiesische von Diu. Sitzungsberichte Wien 103: 3–18.Schuchardt, H. 1883b. Über das Indoportugiesische von Mangalore. Sitzungsberichte Wien 105:

881–904.


Schuchardt, H. 1888a. Zum Negerportugiesischen Senegambiens. Zeitschrift für romanische Phi-lologie12: 301–312.

Schuchardt, H. 1888b. Zum Negerportugiesischen der Kapverden. Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie12: 312–322.

Schuchardt, H. 1888c. Über das Negerportugiesische von Annobom. Sitzungsberichte Wien 116: 193–226.

Schuchardt, H. 1889a. Über das Negerportugiesische der Ilha do Príncipe. Zeitschrift für roma-nische Philologie13: 463–475.

Schuchardt, H. 1889b. Allgemeineres über das Indoportugiesische (Asioportugiesische). Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie13: 476–516.

Schuchardt, H. 1889c. Zum Indoportugiesischen von Mahé und Cannanore. Zeitschrift für rom-anische Philologie13: 516–524.

Schuchardt, H. 1890. Über das Malaioportugiesische von Batavia und Tugu. Sitzungsberichte Wien 122: 1–256.

Teixeira, A.C. 1894. Almanach Luso-africano para 1895. Lisbon: n/p.Teza, E. 1872. Indoportoghese. Studi Filologici 5.Vasconcellos, J.L. 1892. Sur le dialecte portugais de Macao. Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional.Vila, I. 1891. Elementos de la gramática ambú ó de Annobón. Madrid: A. Pérez Dubrull.

The formation of the Portuguese-based Creoles: gradual or abrupt? 2009

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