Current Use
Today the language is spoken by descendants of Topazes and Casados, the Portuguese Burgher community, in the Eastern towns of Batticaloa (Koolavaddy, Mamangam, Uppodai, Dutch Bar, Akkaraipattu) and Trincomalee (Palayuttu). But there are also speakers among the Kaffirs, descendant of African slaves, in the Northwestern province, in Puttalam (Mannar). In the village of Wahakotte near Galewala, in central Sri Lanka, there is a small community of Catholics with partial Portuguese ancestry, where the language was spoken until two generations ago.
Batticaloa is a medium-sized coastal town in the Eastern Province that has always been an isolated outpost, and has been able to retain many ancient habits. This isolation has been a factor in the preservation of SLPC, but very little information exists about the town’s history. Tamil speakers are the overwhelming majority, but there is also a concentrated community of SLPC speaking Burghers. In the early part of the century most Burghers lived close to the center of the town, but more recently, many have moved to outlying areas. All of the Burghers in Batticaloa speak Tamil, many of them better than they do SLPC, and some also speak Sinhala and/or English. The group has no contact with any other creole speakers on the island, and the creole has for a long time been losing ground to Tamil. Currently, decreasing competence can be observed over successive generations: the younger a Burgher, the less likely they are to know the creole, and if they can speak it, their speech exhibits more Tamil features than that of their parents. Members of the burgher community are in constant interaction with Tamil speakers as they live, work, play, study, and worship together. Burgher children learn Tamil at the same time that they learn the creole. It is difficult to determine how many of Batticaloa’s Burghers speak SLPC, but most probably understand it, though in many homes Tamil has become the predominant language.
The language is facing extinction, as it is now only used at home and few are able to speak it well. Throughout Sri Lanka many SLPC speakers have emigrated to other countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, USA and Europe. There are still 100 Burgher families in Batticaloa and Trincomalee and 80 Kaffir families in Puttalam that speak the language. SLPC was very prominent in the past, continuing to be in use despite predictions that it would die out, but current prospects for its survival are equally as bleak as in the past.
An early sample of the language was collected by Hugh Nevill, a British civil servant stationed in Sri Lanka in the late 19th century. Among his large collection of oriental manuscripts is the Sri Lanka Portuguese Creole Manuscript, containing over a thousand verses and a long text in prose.
Read more about this topic: Sri Lankan Portuguese Creole
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