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Mestiços (Sri Lanka)
In Sri Lanka, the names ''Mestiços'' ( Portuguese for "Mixed People") or ''Casados'' ("Married") referred to people of mixed Portuguese and Sri Lankan ( Sinhalese and Tamil) descent. The names can be traced back to the 16th century. History The first ''mestiços'' descended from Portuguese explorers, soldiers and merchants who reached Ceylon (an earlier name of Sri Lanka) after the pioneering voyage of Vasco da Gama. When the Dutch East India Company took over coastal Ceylon, the descendants of the ''mestiços'' took refuge in the central hills of Kingdom of Kandy under Sinhalese rule. By the middle of the 18th century, the descendants of the ''mestiços'' had partly merged with descendants of the Dutch, giving rise to a Eurasian community (a mixture of Portuguese, Dutch, Sinhalese and Tamil), known as the Burghers. Some of these people spoke Portuguese, others spoke Dutch. Later, the Burgher community developed into two different communities: the Dutch Burghers and the Po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, Indian peninsula by the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait. It shares a maritime border with the Maldives in the southwest and India in the northwest. Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte is the legislative capital of Sri Lanka, while the largest city, Colombo, is the administrative and judicial capital which is the nation's political, financial and cultural centre. Kandy is the second-largest urban area and also the capital of the last native kingdom of Sri Lanka. The most spoken language Sinhala language, Sinhala, is spoken by the majority of the population (approximately 17 million). Tamil language, Tamil is also spoken by approximately five million people, making it the second most-spoken language in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka has a population of appr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Portuguese Language
Portuguese ( or ) is a Western Romance language of the Indo-European language family originating from the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. It is the official language of Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Portugal and São Tomé and Príncipe, and has co-official language status in East Timor, Equatorial Guinea and Macau. Portuguese-speaking people or nations are known as Lusophone (). As the result of expansion during colonial times, a cultural presence of Portuguese speakers is also found around the world. Portuguese is part of the Iberian Romance languages, Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia and the County of Portugal, and has kept some Gallaecian language, Celtic phonology. With approximately 250 million native speakers and 17 million second language speakers, Portuguese has approximately 267 million total speakers. It is usually listed as the List of languages by number of native speaker ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Portugal
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it shares Portugal-Spain border, the longest uninterrupted border in the European Union; to the south and the west is the North Atlantic Ocean; and to the west and southwest lie the Macaronesia, Macaronesian archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira, which are the two Autonomous Regions of Portugal, autonomous regions of Portugal. Lisbon is the Capital city, capital and List of largest cities in Portugal, largest city, followed by Porto, which is the only other Metropolitan areas in Portugal, metropolitan area. The western Iberian Peninsula has been continuously inhabited since Prehistoric Iberia, prehistoric times, with the earliest signs of Human settlement, settlement dating to 5500 BC. Celts, Celtic and List of the Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sinhalese People
The Sinhalese people (), also known as the Sinhalese or Sinhala people, are an Indo-Aryan peoples, Indo-Aryan ethno-linguistic group native to the island of Sri Lanka. They are the largest ethnic group in Sri Lanka, constituting about 75% of the Sri Lankan population and number more than 15.2 million. The Sinhalese people speak Sinhala language, Sinhala, an insular Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language. Sinhalese people are predominantly Theravada Buddhists, although a significant minority of Sinhalese follow branches of Christianity in Sri Lanka, Christianity and Religion in Sri Lanka, other religions. Since 1815, Sinhalese people were broadly divided into two subgroups: the up-country Sinhalese of the Central province, Sri Lanka, central mountainous regions, and the low-country Sinhalese of the coastal regions. Although both groups speak the same language, they are distinguished as they observe different cultural customs. According to the ''Mahavamsa'', a Pali chronicle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tamil People
The Tamils ( ), also known by their endonym Tamilar, are a Dravidian ethnic group who natively speak the Tamil language and trace their ancestry mainly to the southern part of the Indian subcontinent. The Tamil language is one of the longest-surviving classical languages, with over two thousand years of written history, dating back to the Sangam period (between 300 BCE and 300 CE). Tamils constitute about 5.7% of the Indian population and form the majority in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu and the union territory of Puducherry. They also form significant proportions of the populations in Sri Lanka (15.3%), Malaysia (7%) and Singapore (5%). Tamils have migrated world-wide since the 19th century CE and a significant population exists in South Africa, Mauritius, Fiji, as well as other regions such as the Southeast Asia, Middle East, Caribbean and parts of the Western World. Archaeological evidence from Tamil Nadu indicates a continuous history of human occupat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Names Of Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka (; ), officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an island country in the northern Indian Ocean which has been known under various names over time. At the outset of the 6th century BC, Sri Lanka was known as ''Silam'',Cosmas (Indicopleustes), ''The Christian Topography of Cosmas, an Egyptian Monk: Translated from the Greek, and Edited with Notes and Introduction'', Hakluyt Society, 1897, p. 363J. W. McCrindle, Hakluyt Society, ''Works Issued by the Hakluyt Society'', B. Franklin, Volume 98, 1897 from the Pali ''Sihalam'' (or ''Simhalam'',J. Dodiya, ''Critical Perspectives on the Rāmāyaṇa'', Sarup & Sons, 2001, p. 166-181 ''Sihalan'',Henry Yule, A. C. Burnell, ''Hobson-Jobson : The Anglo-Indian Dictionary'', 1903 ''Sihala''S. K. Aiyangar, ''Some Contributions of South India to Indian Culture'', Asian Educational Services, 1995); became ''Saylan'' from the 9th century,R. A. Donkin, ''Beyond Price: Pearls and Pearl-fishing, Origins to the Age of Disco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vasco Da Gama
Vasco da Gama ( , ; – 24 December 1524), was a Portuguese explorer and nobleman who was the Portuguese discovery of the sea route to India, first European to reach India by sea. Da Gama's first voyage (1497–1499) was the first to link Europe and Asia using an Cape Route, ocean route that rounded the southern tip of Africa. This route allowed the Portuguese to avoid sailing across the highly disputed Mediterranean Sea and traversing the dangerous Arabian Peninsula, Arabian Peninsula. A milestone in Portuguese maritime exploration, this voyage marked the beginning of a sea-based phase of international trade and an age of global imperialism. The Portuguese later established a Portuguese Empire, long-lasting colonial empire along the route from Africa to Asia. The outward and return voyages constituted the longest known ocean voyages ever completed. Sailors had been trying to reach the Indies for decades, with thousands of lives and dozens of vessels lost in shipwrecks and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dutch East India Company
The United East India Company ( ; VOC ), commonly known as the Dutch East India Company, was a chartered company, chartered trading company and one of the first joint-stock companies in the world. Established on 20 March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating Voorcompagnie, existing companies, it was granted a 21-year monopoly to carry out trade activities in Asia. Shares in the company could be purchased by any citizen of the Dutch Republic and subsequently bought and sold in open-air secondary markets (one of which became the Amsterdam Stock Exchange). The company possessed quasi-governmental powers, including the ability to wage war, imprison and execute convicts, negotiate treaties, strike Coinage of the Dutch East India Company, its own coins, and establish colonies. Also, because it traded across multiple colonies and countries from both the East and the West, the VOC is sometimes considered to have been the world's first multinational corporation. St ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kingdom Of Kandy
The Kingdom of Kandy was a monarchy on the Sri Lanka, island of Sri Lanka, located in the central and eastern portion of the island. It was founded in the late 15th century and endured until the early 19th century. Initially a client kingdom of the Kingdom of Kotte, Kandy gradually established itself as an independent force during the tumultuous 16th and 17th centuries, allying at various times with the Jaffna Kingdom, the Madurai Nayak dynasty of South India, kingdom of Sitawaka, Sitawaka Kingdom, and the Dutch Ceylon, Dutch colonizers to ensure its survival. Throughout the 16th century, numerous battles were fought with the Portuguese and later the Dutch, and from the 1590s, Kandy became the sole independent native polity on the island of Sri Lanka and through a combination of hit-and-run tactics and diplomacy kept European colonial forces at bay in the central highlands, before finally falling under British Ceylon, British colonial rule in 1818. The kingdom was absorbed in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eurasian
Eurasia ( , ) is a continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. According to some geographers, physiographically, Eurasia is a single supercontinent. The concept of Europe and Asia as distinct continents dates back to antiquity, but their borders have historically been subject to change. For example, the ancient Greeks originally included Africa in Asia but classified Europe as separate land. Eurasia is connected to Africa at the Suez Canal, and the two are sometimes combined to describe the largest contiguous landmass on Earth, Afro-Eurasia. History Eurasia has been the host of many ancient civilizations, including those based in Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley and China. In the Axial Age (mid- first millennium BCE), a continuous belt of civilizations stretched through the Eurasian subtropical zone from the Atlantic to the Pacific. This belt became the mainstream of world history for two millennia. New connections emerged between the subregions of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dutch Language
Dutch ( ) is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, spoken by about 25 million people as a first language and 5 million as a second language and is the List of languages by total number of speakers, third most spoken Germanic language. In Europe, Dutch is the native language of most of the population of the Netherlands and Flanders (which includes 60% of the population of Belgium). "1% of the EU population claims to speak Dutch well enough in order to have a conversation." (page 153). Dutch was one of the official languages of South Africa until 1925, when it was replaced by Afrikaans, a separate but partially Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible daughter language of Dutch. Afrikaans, depending on the definition used, may be considered a sister language, spoken, to some degree, by at least 16 million people, mainly in South Africa and Namibia, and evolving from Cape Dutch dialects. In South America, Dutch is the native l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Portuguese Burghers
The Portuguese Burghers are an ethnic group in Sri Lanka, of mixed Portuguese and Sri Lankan descent. They are largely Catholic and some still speak the Sri Lanka Indo-Portuguese language, a creole based on Portuguese mixed with Sinhalese. In modern times, English has become the common language while Sinhalese is taught in school as a second language. Portuguese Burghers sometimes mixed with but are to be distinguished from other Burgher people, such as Dutch Burghers. Origins The Portuguese Burghers are largely descendants of the Sri Lanka Mestiços, the people of mixed Portuguese and Sri Lankan descent (commonly of a Portuguese father and a Sri Lankan mother) who appeared in the 16th century, after the Portuguese explorers found the sea route to the Indian Ocean. When the Dutch took over coastal Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon), the descendants of the Portuguese took refuge in the central hills of Kandyan Kingdom under Sinhalese rule. In time, the Dutch and Portuguese desce ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
