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 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 a ...

spoken in the Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu union territory, in the

Konkan region The Konkan ( kok, कोंकण) or Kokan () is a stretch of land by the western coast of India, running from Damaon in the north to Karwar in the south; with the Arabian Sea to the west and the Deccan plateau in the east. The hinterland ...

of India. Before the Indian annexation of the territory, the creole spoken by the Damanese natives underwent through a profound decreolisation in the erstwhile Portuguese Goa and Damaon colony, a phenomenon whereby the Indo-Portuguese creole reconverged with European Portuguese.

Daman Indo-Portuguese

The Daman creole is a descendant of the Norteiro creole, spoken originally by the ''

Norteiro Norteiros were a historical people who lived in the former Portuguese exclaves in the western littoral parts of the northern Konkan region, in the present-day Greater Bombay Metropolitan Area and the union territory of Damaon, Diu& Silvassa. ' ...

s'' on the Coast from Chaul,

Baçaim Vasai (Konkani and Marathi pronunciation: �əsəi formerly and alternatively Mahratti; ''Bajipur'', English: Bassein; Portuguese: Baçaim), is a historical place and City near Mumbai (Bombay)'s western suburbs, located in Palghar district ...

, Bombay, Daman and Diu. The

superstrate In linguistics, a stratum (Latin for "layer") or strate is a language that influences or is influenced by another through contact. A substratum or substrate is a language that has lower power or prestige than another, while a superstratum or sup ...

language is Portuguese. The

substrate Substrate may refer to: Physical layers *Substrate (biology), the natural environment in which an organism lives, or the surface or medium on which an organism grows or is attached ** Substrate (locomotion), the surface over which an organism lo ...

of the Daman creole is likely to be Konkani. Gujarati has also been suggested as a possible substrate, but this is doubtful since the

Gujarati people The Gujarati people or Gujaratis, are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group who reside in or can trace their ancestry or heritage to the present-day western Indian state of Gujarat. They primarily speak Gujarati, an Indo-Aryan language. While G ...

moved into the region only ''after'' the Portuguese arrived.

Diu Indo-Portuguese

The Diu Indo-Portuguese or Diu Portuguese is spoken in Diu district, India. It is a creole language based mainly on Portuguese and Gujarati. It is a member of the larger family of Indo-Portuguese 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. 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, English and

standard Portuguese Portuguese ( or, in full, ) is a western Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European language family, originating in the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. It is an official language of Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde, Angola, Mozambique, ...

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.

References

;Daman * ;Diu * * *

Daman Indo-Portuguese

Diu Indo-Portuguese

Number of speakers

See also

References

Further reading