Patrícia Costa

Sri Lanka Portuguese

ISO 639-3: idb

Sri Lanka Portuguese is an endangered Portuguese-based creole spoken as L1/L2 by the Portuguese Burghers, an Eurasian community claiming Portuguese ancestry. Currently, the language is spoken by c. 1300 speakers scattered across the Jaffna, Trincomalee, Batticaloa, and Ampara districts of Sri Lanka (Cardoso et al. 2019).

Resources to find out more

References

Sri Lanka Portuguese • Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures

Documentation of Sri Lanka Portuguese • ELAR

Indo-Portuguese (Sri Lanka) • PARADISEC

Sri Lankan Portuguese creole • Wikipedia

The Language That Was Left Behind • Roar media

தாய்மொழியை மறந்து தமிழ், சிங்களம் பேசும் போர்த்துகீசிய வம்சாவளிகள் • BBC News Tamil

Documentation

Check out this video made by Chouette Films for the Endangered Languages Archive based on a selection of our field recordings and listen to how Sri Lanka Portuguese sounds!

Revitalization efforts

Developed in collaboration with community members, the project Nósa Lingvááy ('our language, எங்கள் மொழி') provides accessible educational materials and resources for those interested in learning or finding out more about this language.