Cochin Portuguese Creole Explained

See main article: Indo-Portuguese creole.

Cochin Indo-Portuguese
Also Known As:Vypin Indo-Portuguese
States:India
Region:Kochi
Extinct:20 August 2010, with the death of William Rozario
Familycolor:Creole
Fam1:Portuguese Creole
Fam2:Indo-Portuguese Creoles
Isoexception:dialect
Glotto:mala1544
Glottoname:Malabar–Sri Lanka Portuguese

Cochin Indo-Portuguese, also known as Vypin Indo-Portuguese from its geographic centre, is an Indo-Portuguese creole spoken on the Malabar coast of India, particularly in Fort Cochin, in the state of Kerala. The last person who spoke it as a first language, William Rozario, died in 2010. It is now spoken by Christian families in an around Vypeen Island (Vypin Island) and other areas of the Kochi metropolitan area.

History

Cochin Indo-Portuguese, known locally as "Portuguese" or "Cochin Portuguese", formed from contact between Portuguese, Malayalam and other languages spoken in old Cochin.[1] Cochin Portuguese was one of the first contact languages to spring up from European contact in Asia, and it became the mother tongue of part of the local Catholic community in the 15th to 19th centuries. It emerged from Catholic Indo-Portuguese households in Malabar, and it became sufficiently established that it continued under Dutch occupation in the 17th century. Speakers started shifting away from the language around the turn of the 19th century. The last native speaker, William Rozario, died on 20 August 2010 in Vypeen. Some in Cochin still understand it to a degree.

Examples

Numbers in Cochin Portuguese!Creole !Standard Portuguese !English
ummaumone
dōsdoistwo
thrēstrêsthree
kāthruquatrofour
sinkkucincofive
sēysseissix
sēthiseteseven
oythuoitoeight
nōvinovenine
dēsdezten

Portuguese and Malayalam Influence

Both Portuguese and Malayalam have had significant influences in Malabar Indo-Portuguese. The verb , for example, borrows its semantic context from other Portuguese verbs, namely from the verbs ter (have) and estar (be). Conversely, the verb's morphosyntactic and semantic constructions were influenced greatly by Malayalam.[2]

Notes and References

  1. Cardoso . Hugo . October 30, 2010 . The Death of an Indian-born Language . Open Magazine . en.
  2. Krajinović . Ana . Existence, location, possession, and copula in Malabar Indo-Portuguese . Journal of South Asian Languages and Linguistics . 26 November 2019 . 6 . 1 . 27–57 . . 10.1515/jsall-2019-2007 . 208252700 .