UNIT 8: PORTUGUESE IN THE FAR EAST

From 1497 onwards, Portugal controlled the sea-routes to and from the Indian Ocean for more than a hundred years. The Portuguese language became the lingua franca , or common language of trade and commerce, and was also used by many local rulers to communicate with other European government representatives and traders. The religious missions also used Portuguese as an ecclesiastical language and to communicate with the indigenous populations. Many Portuguese “loan words” can still be found in the Indonesian languages, Japanese and the languages of Ceylon.

Where the Portuguese set up trading posts and more established communities, a Creole Portuguese developed, and there are small communities throughout Asia who still continue to use Creole, though many varieties are dying out or are now extinct.

MALACCA

The Portuguese ruled Malacca from 1511 to 1641.  When Afonso de Albuquerque conquered Malacca in 1511, he encouraged a policy of intermarriage between indigenous women and Portuguese settlers and thus formed a Creole community.

About 1000 people, a community of Luso-Malay descendants, speak Papiá Kristang (from “Christian”), which is, according to the Malacca Portuguese Eurasian Association, archaic Portuguese with a Malay grammar.