The Daman and Diu Portuguese Creole, pt, língua crioula de Damão e Diu and by its native speakers as meaning "home language", refers to variety of
Indo-Portuguese creole spoken in the
Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu
Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu is a union territory in India. The territory was constituted through the merger of the former territories of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. Plans for the proposed merger were announced by t ...
union territory, in the
Konkan region of India. Before the Indian annexation of the territory, the creole spoken by the Damanese natives underwent through a profound
decreolisation
Decreolization is a postulated phenomenon whereby over time a creole language reconverges with the lexifier from which it originally derived. The notion has attracted criticism from linguists who argue there is little theoretical or empirical b ...
in the erstwhile
Portuguese Goa and Damaon
The State of India ( pt, Estado da Índia), also referred as the Portuguese State of India (''Estado Português da Índia'', EPI) or simply Portuguese India (), was a state of the Portuguese Empire founded six years after the discovery of a se ...
colony, a phenomenon whereby the Indo-Portuguese creole reconverged with
European Portuguese
European Portuguese ( pt, português europeu, ), also known as Portuguese of Portugal (Portuguese: português de Portugal), Iberian Portuguese (Portuguese: português ibérico), and Peninsular Portuguese (Portuguese: português peninsular), refer ...
.
Daman Indo-Portuguese
The Daman creole is a descendant of the
Norteiro creole, spoken originally by the ''
Norteiros'' on the Coast from
Chaul
Chaul is a historic town located in the Raigad district of Maharashtra, India. The Korlai Fort is located nearby.
History
The town was famous for cotton manufactured goods in the 15th and 16th century, According to Varthema, Chaul was p ...
,
Baçaim,
Bombay
Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second-m ...
,
Daman and Diu
Daman and Diu (; ) was a former union territory in northwestern India. With an area of , it was the smallest administrative subdivision of India on the mainland. The territory comprised two districts, Damaon and Dio island, geographically s ...
.
The
superstrate language is Portuguese. The
substrate of the Daman creole is likely to be
Konkani.
Gujarati
Gujarati may refer to:
* something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India
* Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat
* Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them
* Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub ...
has also been suggested as a possible substrate, but this is doubtful since the
Gujarati people moved into the region only ''after'' the Portuguese arrived.
Diu Indo-Portuguese
The Diu Indo-Portuguese or Diu Portuguese is spoken in
Diu district
Diu district (Indo-Portuguese; ''Distrito de Dio'') is one of the three districts of the union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu of India. The district is made up of Diu Island and two small enclaves on the Indian mainlan ...
,
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
. It is a
creole language
A creole language, or simply creole, is a stable natural language that develops from the simplifying and mixing of different languages into a new one within a fairly brief period of time: often, a pidgin evolved into a full-fledged language. ...
based mainly on
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
and
Gujarati
Gujarati may refer to:
* something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India
* Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat
* Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them
* Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub ...
. It is a member of the larger family of
Indo-Portuguese creoles
Indo-Portuguese creoles are the several Portuguese creoles spoken in the erstwhile Portuguese Indian settlements, Cochin Portuguese Creole, Fort Bassein, Goa and Damaon, Portuguese Ceylon etc, in present-day India and Sri Lanka. These creoles ...
, particularly close to the variety of Daman.
There is a considerably vital oral tradition in this language, with songs regularly performed in Diu, elsewhere in India and among Indo-Portuguese communities abroad.
Widely spoken in the past, it was first documented in the 19th century by the initiative of
Hugo Schuchardt Hugo Ernst Mario Schuchardt (4 February 1842, Gotha (Thuringia) – 21 April 1927, Graz ( Styria)) was an eminent German linguist, best known for his work in the Romance languages, the Basque language, and in mixed languages, including pidgins, ...
. At present, the language is spoken natively by most of the local Catholics, numbering about 180, but is potentially endangered by the pressure of other languages such as
Gujarati
Gujarati may refer to:
* something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India
* Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat
* Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them
* Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub ...
,
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
and
standard Portuguese.
Number of speakers
The Portuguese heritage in Daman is more common and lively than in Goa and this helped to keep the language alive. The language is spoken by an estimated number of 2,000
Damanese.
Besides the , Gujarati and Portuguese are also found in the territory.
See also
*
Kristi language
*
Decreolization
Decreolization is a postulated phenomenon whereby over time a creole language reconverges with the lexifier from which it originally derived. The notion has attracted criticism from linguists who argue there is little theoretical or empirical b ...
References
;Daman
*
;Diu
*
*
*
Further reading
APiCS Online - Survey chapter: Diu Indo-Portuguese
{{DEFAULTSORT:Daman and Diu Indo-Portuguese
Portuguese-based pidgins and creoles
Portuguese dialects
Konkan
Portuguese diaspora in Asia
Daman and Diu
Portuguese language in Asia