Portuguese creoles are creole languages whose lexical base is mainly derived from Portuguese. The oldest of them, Cape Verdean Creole, appeared at the end of the 15th century, while the more recent ones, such as Malacca Creole or Diu Creole, developed in the 17th and 18th centuries in the former Asian trading posts of the Portuguese empire.

Origins Portuguese overseas exploration in the 15th and 16th centuries led to the establishment of a Portuguese Empire with trading posts, forts and colonies in Africa, Asia and the Americas. Contact between the Portuguese language and native languages gave rise to many Portuguese-based pidgins, used as linguas francas throughout the Portuguese sphere of influence. In time, many of these pidgins were nativized, becoming new stable creole languages.

As is the rule in most creoles, the lexicon of these languages can be traced to the parent languages, usually with predominance of Portuguese;

These creoles are (or were) spoken mostly by communities of descendants of Portuguese, natives, and sometimes other peoples from the Portuguese colonial empire.

Until recently creoles were considered "degenerate" dialects of Portuguese unworthy of attention. As a consequence, there is little documentation on the details of their formation. Since the 20th century, increased study of creoles by linguists led to several theories being advanced. The monogenetic theory of pidgins assumes that some type of pidgin language — dubbed West African Pidgin Portuguese — based on Portuguese was spoken from the 15th to 18th centuries in the forts established by the Portuguese on the West African coast. According to this theory, this variety may have been the starting point of all the pidgin and creole languages. This may explain to some extent why Portuguese lexical items can be found in many creoles, but more importantly, it would account for the numerous grammatical similarities shared by such languages, such as the preposition na, meaning "in" and/or "on", which would come from the Portuguese contraction na, meaning "in the" (feminine singular).

Origin of the name

The Portuguese word for "creole" is crioulo, which derives from the verb criar ("to raise", "to bring up") and a suffix -oulo of debated origin. Originally the word was used to distinguish the members of any ethnic group who were born and raised in the colonies from those who were born in their homeland. In Africa it was often applied to locally born people of (wholly or partly) Portuguese descent, as opposed to those born in Portugal; whereas in Brazil it was also used to distinguish locally born black people of African descent from those who had been brought from Africa as slaves.

In time, however, this generic sense was lost, and the word crioulo or its derivatives (like "Creole" and its equivalents in other languages) became the name of several specific Upper Guinean communities and their languages: the Guinean people and their Kriol language, Cape Verdean people and their Kriolu language, all of which still today have very vigorous use, suppressing the importance of official standard Portuguese.

Concise list Saramaccan: An English-Portuguese creole spoken in Suriname and French Guyana Macanese: Previously spoken in Macau

Upper Guinea Cape Verdean Creole: Vigorous use, Cape Verde Islands. Guinea-Bissau Creole: Vigorous use. Lingua franca in Guinea-Bissau, also spoken in Casamance, Senegal. Growing number of speakers. Papiamento: Official language in Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao. Although situated in the Caribbean, it belongs to this language family. It has a growing number of speakers.

Lower Guinea Angolar: A heavy substrate of Kimbundu, spoken on São Tomé Island, São Tomé and Príncipe. Annobonese: Vigorous use. Spoken on Annobón island, Equatorial Guinea Forro: Forro is becoming the language of social networks. Spoken on São Tomé Island, São Tomé and Príncipe. Principense: Almost extinct. Spoken on Príncipe Island, São Tomé and Príncipe.

Indo-Portuguese

Malabar–Sri Lankan Portuguese, grouping Sri Lankan Portuguese, Battilocan Portuguese, Malabar Indo-Portuguese. Spoken in the coastal cities of Sri Lanka and Malabar, India. Daman and Diu Portuguese Creole, spoken in Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, India. (old decreolization) Korlai Portuguese Creole, spoken in Korlai, India.

Malayo-Portuguese Kristang: spoken in Malaysia and emigrant communities in Singapore and Perth, Western Australia. Mardijker Creole: Extinct, formerly spoken by Mardijker people in the Kampung Tugu area of Jakarta. Portugis: Extinct, formerly spoken by Luso-Asian Moluccans on Ambon and Ternate in the Maluku Islands. Português de Bidau: Extinct, formerly spoken in Bidau, a suburb of Dili, East Timor.

Africa

Upper Guinea The oldest Portuguese creole are the so-called crioulos of Upper Guinea, born around the Portuguese settlements along the northwest coast of Africa. Portuguese creoles are the mother tongues of most people in Cape Verde and the ABC Islands. In Guinea-Bissau, the creole is used as lingua franca among people speaking different languages, and is becoming the mother tongue of a growing population. They consist of two languages: Guinea-Bissau Creole (Kriol): lingua franca of Guinea-Bissau, also spoken in Casamance, Senegal and in Gambia. Casamance Creole (Kriyol): a dialect of Guinea-Bissau creole, spoken mainly in Casamance, Senegal and The Gambia. Cape Verdean Creole (Kriolu, Kriol): a dialect continuum on the islands of Cape Verde. Papiamento (Papiamentu), spoken in Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao. Guene, an extinct creole spoken by Afro-Curaçaoans and Afro-Bonaireans.

Gulf of Guinea Another group of creoles is spoken in the Gulf of Guinea, in São Tomé and Príncipe and Equatorial Guinea. Angolar (Ngola, N'góla): in coastal areas of São Tomé Island. Annobonese (Fa d'Ambu): on Annobón Island. Forro:Forro was a declaration of freedom of a specific slave used in Portugal and its colonies. These were the most wished documents for the enslaved population. These freed slaves developed and stabilized a creole. in São Tomé. Principense (Lunguyê) (almost extinct): on Príncipe Island. Tongas Portuguese (Português dos Tongas): variety of Cape Verdean Creole spoken in São Tomé and Príncipe.

Many other Portuguese creoles probably existed in the former Portuguese feitorias in the Gulf of Guinea, but also in the Congo region.

Portuguese pidgins Portuguese pidgins still exist in Angola and Mozambique.

South Asia

India

The numerous Portuguese outposts in India and Sri Lanka gave rise to many Portuguese creole languages, of which only a few have survived to the present. The largest group were the Norteiro languages, spoken by the Norteiro people, the Christian Indo-Portuguese in the North Konkan. Those communities were centered on Baçaim, modern Vasai, which was then called the "Northern Court of Portuguese India" (in opposition to the "Southern Court" at Goa). The creole languages spoken in Baçaim, Salsete, Thana, Chevai, Mahim, Tecelaria, Dadar, Parel, Cavel, Bandora (modern Bandra), Gorai, Morol, Andheri, Versova, Malvan, Manori, Mazagão, and Chaul are now extinct. The only surviving Norteiro creoles are: Daman and Diu Portuguese Creole: in Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. Spoken by about 4,000 people in Daman and 180 in Diu. Kristi: in Korlai, Maharashtra. Spoken by about 800 people in 2015.

These surviving Norteiro creoles have suffered drastic changes in the last decades. Standard Portuguese re-influenced the creole of Daman in the mid-20th century.

The creoles of the Coast of Coromandel, such as of Meliapor, Madras, Tuticorin, Cuddalore, Karikal, Pondicherry, Tranquebar, Manapar, and Negapatam, were already extinct by the 19th century. Their speakers (mostly the people of mixed Portuguese-Indian ancestry, known locally as Topasses) switched to English after the British takeover.

Most of the creoles of the Coast of Malabar, namely those of Cananor, Tellicherry, Mahé, Cochin (modern Kerala), and Quilon) had become extinct by the 19th century. In Cananor and Tellicherry, some elderly people still spoke some creole in the 1980s. The only creole that is still spoken (by a few Christian families only) is Vypin Indo-Portuguese, in the Vypin Island, near Kerala; the last native speaker of the language, William Rozario, died in 2010, but the language is still spoken and understood to some degree by the Luso-Asian community of Kochi.

Christians, even in Calcutta, used Portuguese until 1811. A Portuguese creole was still spoken in the early 20th century. Portuguese creoles were spoken in Bengal, such as at Balasore, Pipli, Chandannagore, Chittagong, Midnapore and Hooghly.

Sri Lanka Significant Portuguese creoles flourished among the so-called Burgher and Kaffir communities of Sri Lanka: Sri Lanka Indo-Portuguese: around Batticaloa and Trincomalee (Portuguese Burghers) and Puttalam (Kaffirs). Spoken by about 2,220 people in 2011. Primarily derived from Sinhala and Portuguese with influence and some vocabulary from Tamil and Dutch. Sri Lanka Kaffir Portuguese: a creole spoken by the Sri Lankan Kaffir community. The Kaffirs are descendants of soldiers and slaves from the African Great Lakes region, as well as Portuguese colonists and native Sinhalese and Tamils. The language reportedly differed from the main Sri Lanka Indo-Portuguese Creole spoken in Sri Lanka, and likely had influences from Bantu languages, although there are no records of the language, and the Kaffir community switched to Sri Lanka Indo-Portuguese.

Bangladesh Bengali Portuguese Creole was spoken by Luso-Asians and Roman Catholics in Bangladesh until its extinction in the late 19th to early 20th century. Bangladeshi Luso-Asians who spoke Bengali Portuguese Creole were concentrated in Chittagong, in the old Portuguese settlement of Firingi Bazar, formerly the capital of the Portuguese Empire in Bengal. A smaller but still significant population of Bengali Portuguese Creole speakers was located in the smaller Firingi Bazar of Dhaka; the word Firingi is derived from the Persian word farang meaning foreigner.

In the past, Portuguese creoles were also spoken in Myanmar and Bangladesh.

Southeast & East Asia

The earliest Portuguese creole in the region probably arose in the 16th century in Malacca, Malaysia, as well as in the Moluccas. After the takeover of those places by the Dutch in the 17th century, many creole-speaking slaves were taken to other places in Indonesia and South Africa, leading to several creoles that survived until recent times.

Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Timor-Leste Kristang (Cristão): in Malacca (Malaysia) and Singapore, with a further diaspora community in Perth, Western Australia descended from both communities arising in more modern times. Derived primarily from Portuguese and Malay with some vocabulary from Tamil, Cantonese, Dutch, and Hokkien. Mardijker (extinct in 2012): by the Mardijker people of Batavia (Jakarta) Papiá Tugu (extinct in 1978): in Kampung Tugu, Jakarta, Indonesia. Portugis (extinct around 1950): in the Ambon, Ternate islands and Minahasa, Indonesia Bidau Portuguese (extinct in the 1960s): in the Bidau area of Dili, East Timor. Flores Portuguese (possibly extinct in the late 20th century): in the Larantuka and Maumere of Flores, Indonesia.

Portuguese was present on the island of Flores, Indonesia since the 16th century, especially in Larantuka and Maumere; it probably became extinct in the late 20th century, its traces in the local Malay-based creole language, if any, do not survive (see Larantuka Malay and Maumere Malay).

Thailand and Myanmar Portuguese creoles were spoken in the Bangkok neighborhoods of Kudi Chin and Conception, which were former Portuguese colonies settled by Luso-Asians, and in the Sagaing Region of Myanmar.