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Early Notices Regarding Creole Portuguese in
Former Portuguese Timor
Alan N. Baxter
Universidade Federal da Bahia
alan.baxter@uba.br
Hugo C. Cardoso
Universidade de Lisboa
hcardoso@clul.ul.pt
Abstract
The area of Bidau, in the East Timorese capital of Dili, was home to the only docu-
mented form of Creole Portuguese in Timor. Although Bidau Creole Portuguese is now
extinct, by most accounts, a few scattered records allow a glimpse into what it must
have been like, and reveal its clear relationship with other Southeast Asian Portuguese-
based creoles; Baxter’s (1990a) study of Bidau Creole Portuguese was based mostly on
a set of recordings made in the context of the Missão Antropológica de Timor [“An-
thropological Mission to Timor”, 1953–1954]. In this article, Baxter (1990a: 3) mentions
that “[s]o far, the earliest located reference to Bidau Creole Portuguese, and one which
contains some impressionistic examples of conversations and the verse of a song, is
Castro (1943: 56, 177)”. However, since the publication of this study, a few earlier refer-
ences to what can be interpreted as Portuguese-based creole in Timor have been lo-
cated in unpublished archival sources. These sources are letters sent to two important
philologists of the late 19 and early 20 century, Hugo Schuchardt and José Leite de
Vasconcelos, who were greatly interested in ascertaining whether a creole was spoken
in Timor and what the local Portuguese was like. The present study introduces and
contextualises these epistolary sources, discussing the linguistic and sociolinguistic
material contained therein, and its relevance for the conrmation of diferent threads
of language contact involving Portuguese.
Keywords
East Timor – Creole Portuguese – early notices – Bidau Creole Portuguese
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1
2
The text of the book had been published in installments in the journal Seara Nova between
1928 and 1929.
Manuscript kept at the University of Graz (Austria), Hugo Schuchardt Archiv, nr. 03853. Avail-
able online at <http://schuchardt.uni-graz.at/korrespondenz/briefe/korrespondenzpartner/
1705/briefe/01-03853>.
1 Introduction
The only documented form of Creole Portuguese in Timor was associated with
Bidau, a district of Dili, the East Timorese capital. Bidau Creole Portuguese
() has its roots in the Portuguese presence in the Flores-Timor region as
of the 16 century, involving missionary activities and the Timor sandalwood
trade, connected with both Malacca and Macau. Although is now ex-
tinct, by most accounts, a few scattered records allow a glimpse into what it
must have been like, and reveal its relationship with other Southeast Asian
Portuguese- based creoles. This point is clearly made in Baxter (1990a), in a
study of which was based mostly on recordings made by the Portuguese
Missão Antropológica de Timor [“Anthropological Mission to Timor”, 1953–
1954], highlighting important similarities with both Malacca Creole (MalCP)
and Macau Creole (MacCP), in the lexicon (e.g. atardi ‘afternoon’; anoti ‘night’;
nomas ‘only’) and morphosyntax (e.g. verb serialisation involving direction-
al verbs bai ‘go’ and beŋ ‘come’; a possessive construction with the structure
Possessor + sa/su/sua+ Possessee; copula-possessive verb syncretism).
Baxter (1990a: 3) also mentions that “[s]o far, the earliest located reference
to , and one which contains some impressionistic examples of conversa-
tions and the verse of a song, is Castro (1943: 56, 177)”. The reference is to A ilha
verde e vermelha de Timor, written by Alberto Osório de Castro, a Portuguese
poet and jurist who worked as a judge in Timor, in which the author transcribes
a song in “português de Dílli” (‘Dili Portuguese’) strongly reminiscent of Luso-
Asian oral traditions—see 2.5 below—, and a few short dialogues. In addition,
Baxter (1990a) transcribes and analyses a letter to Hugo Schuchardt in 1885
from João Gomes Ferreira—see 2.3 below—, the vicar general and superior of
the Catholic missions of Timor; this letter contains language samples identi-
ed as “portuguez corrompido” (‘corrupt Portuguese’) with some features in
common with the Asian Portuguese-based Creoles, but the author attributes
this variety to incomplete acquisition of L2 Portuguese and interference from
the speakers’ L1.
Since Baxter’s (1990a) study, we have identied further early references to the
specicities of “Portuguese” in Timor and to the debate of whether ornotthis
should be interpreted as a creole. These notices provide more explicit (yet oc-
casionally contradictory) descriptions of the variation underlying “ Portuguese”
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in late-19-c. /early 20-c.Timor but also, crucially, further linguistic snippets
of Creole Portuguese (), recognizable in comparison with the 1950s cor-
pus of . The linguistic data in these accounts are somewhat variable and
contribute to reconstructing a linguistic space in which L2 Portuguese and
Portuguese- based creoles coexisted. Despite the diculty in setting boundaries
between all these linguistic variants, we try to interpret the data by ascertain-
ing whether the reported linguistic features resulted from the difusion of con-
tact varieties of Portuguese across (Southeast) Asia, whether they constitute
specically Timorese developments or bear the hallmarks of L2 acquisition.
2 Early Notices
In European academia, the late 19 century and early 20 century was a mo-
ment of renewed philological interest in the cultural (and, therefore, linguistic)
diversity of the world. The publication of linguistic corpora and descriptions
was boosted by the creation of scholarly institutions and periodicals, and was
promoted by professional philologists and learned laymen alike.
It was at this time that modern Portuguese dialectology took of, a pro-
cess which allowed some space for the study of the Portuguese-based cre-
oles (Morais- Barbosa, 1967: f). The difusion of the Portuguese language
around the world and its linguistic consequences—from the production of
dialectal variation to the formation of creole languages—aroused the inter-
est of Portuguese as well as foreign philologists. In Portugal and the Portu-
guese-speaking world, major names of this line of enquiry include Adolfo
Coelho, José Leite de Vasconcelos, Sebastião Rodolfo Dalgado and António
de Paula Brito; elsewhere, Hugo Schuchardt and Emilio Teza are particularly
relevant.
Naturally, collecting primary linguistic data on non-European Portuguese
dialects and Portuguese-based creoles would have been challenging for most
of these scholars—except for those residing in the eld, such as António de
Paula Brito (Cape Verde) or Sebastião Dalgado (India and Ceylon). Therefore,
they often relied on a global network of correspondents who could collect data
in various parts of the world and comment on linguistic matters concerning
their areas of residence. These networks comprised not only linguistically-
trained correspondents (in short supply) but mostly people with various other
functions (missionaries, colonial administrators, military agents, etc.). One of
the most active in this type of methodology was the German scholar Hugo
Schuchardt, working at the Austrian University of Graz since 1876. In Portugal,
simultaneously, a wide network of informants was developed by José Leite de
Vasconcelos, a founding gure of Portuguese dialectology (1901).
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These letters often contain crucial linguistic data unavailable from pub-
lished sources. Fortunately, the epistolary archives of Hugo Schuchardt and of
Leite de Vasconcelos are publicly available at the University of Graz (Austria)
and the Museu Nacional de Arqueologia (Lisbon, Portugal), respectively. Both
scholars took an interest in the linguistics of Portuguese Timor, and they que-
ried their informants about its indigenous languages, the Portuguese language
and the possible use of a Portuguese-based creole. Their interest in ascertain-
ing whether a Portuguese-based creole formed in Timor could have derived
from their awareness that such creoles existed in other Asian locations such
as India, Ceylon, Malacca and Macau. However, there was also an earlier refer-
ence to a Timorese “crioulo” in the book As possessões portuguezas na Oceâ-
nia, published in 1867 by Afonso de Castro (governor of Portuguese Timor,
1858–1861). Leite de Vasconcelos knew of this source because it is discussed
in a letter addressed to him by Rafael das Dores (see 2.4), and Schuchardt may
also have had access to it. In this book, Castro refers to the linguistic situation
of Dili in the following terms:
Têem os timores tão grande facilidade para aprender o malaio, quanta
diculdade para o portuguez, que rarissimos fallam correctamente, e
que uma grande parte dos chefes e dos habitantes de Dilly estropiam,
fazendo um crioulo, que nos custa quasi tanto a comprehender, como os
dialectos timores.
, :
[The Timorese have as much ease in learning Malay as they have di-
culty in learning Portuguese, which very few speak correctly, and which a
majority of the chiefs and inhabitants of Dili mutilate, producing a creole
that is almost as dicult for us to understand as the Timorese languages.]
This passage impacted on contemporary scholars concerned with Portuguese
and Portuguese-based creoles; Adolfo Coelho, considered that “[f]ora do maior
interesse reunir alguns espécimes do crioulo de Timor, assim como continuar
a obra começada tão bem pelo Sr. Afonso de Castro” [it would be of the utmost
interest to collect a few samples of the creole of Timor, as well as to continue
the work so well started by Mr. Afonso de Castro] (Coelho, 1882). However,
Castro’s report raises many questions. One of these relates to the author’s un-
derstanding of the linguistic variation he addresses—see also, in this respect,
Rafael das Dores’ later criticism of this passage (section2.4.).
Another question, which also applies to other sources discussed here, con-
cerns what exactly is understood by “crioulo”, a word with a complex semantic
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3
Tetun, an Austronesian language, exists in East Timor in two main varieties: Tetun Terik,
spoken along the border with West Timor and two southern coastal regions, and Tetun Dili,
spoken in the capital and immediate area and as a lingua franca in much of East Timor (Hull,
1999; Williams-van Klinken, 2002; Williams-van Klinken et al., 2002). In contrast with Tetun
Terik, which has few loan words, Tetun Dili is much inuenced by Portuguese. According
to Williams-van Klinken (2002), early missionary materials in Tetun broadly followed Tetun
Terik, but display certain Tetun Dili characteristics such as the absence of Tetun Terik subject
marking.
history (Baker and Mühlhäusler 2007). In this instance, the description appears
to imply that what was classied as “crioulo” was synchronically produced by
diculties in the acquisition of Portuguese as an L2. Therefore, Castro is prob-
ably not referring to a variety used as an L1. Indeed, in any Portuguese estab-
lishment in Asia, a range of interacting varieties typically developed extending
from L1 competence in (creole) Portuguese to more or less rudimentary L2.
Such situations usually included ow-ons from other establishments, and local
developments. Hence, Castro’s “crioulo” may not have referred to the L1 creole
we know as or any similar creole, but rather to a set of interlanguages. This
is probably also true of other scattered and vague references to the Portuguese
of Timor, such as that of the D. António de Medeiros, the bishop of Macau and
Timor, in a letter included in the prologue of an 1885 catechism in Tetun writ-
ten by Father Sebastião Maria Aparício da Silva, who had dedicated the work
to him:
Acceito o que deseja que acceite, porque é com verdadeira emoção que
eu vejo os primeiros fructos d’um trabalho a que V. Rev. se votou dedi-
cadamente ha mais de oito annos, que eu reputo de grande valor para a
civilisação dos povos malasios da nossa colonia de Timor, sabendo por
experiencia, que recebem mais ideias d’uma pratica em lingua do paiz,
que de muitas palestras no algaraviado portuguez d’aquelle paiz.
, :
[I accept what you wish me to accept, because it is with real emotion
that I see the rst fruit of a labour to which Your Excellency has been
diligently dedicated for over eight years, which I nd of great worth for
the civilization of the Malay peoples of our colony of Timor, knowing by
experience that they extract more ideas from a sermon in the country’s
own language than from many speeches in the gibberish Portuguese of
that country.]
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4
“Como eu estou aqui há apenas um anno, não tendo portanto a practica necessária, pedi a
um dos missionarios que me coadjuvasse, e espero poder enviar a V. E. alguma cousa do que
deseja.” [‘Since I have only been here for a year, therefore lacking the necessary experience,
I have asked one of the missionaries to help me, and I hope to be able to send Your Excel-
lency some of what you desire.’]. The unnamed missionary was presumably one of the priests
trained at Cernache do Bonjardim’s Real Colégio das Missões Ultramarinas who took over the
Timorese mission in 1877.
This reference suggests that the contemporary Catholic missionaries (native
speakers of Portuguese) preached in ‘gibberish Portuguese’ to native speakers
of a Timorese language. Here, again, we have no clear reference to a Portuguese-
based creole language used as L1 but rather to either a form of foreigner talk
produced by L1 Portuguese speakers or, to the extent that this ‘gibberish Portu-
guese’ constituted a means of interethnic communication, a Portuguese-based
pidgin. Nonetheless, for scholars such as Schuchardt and Leite de Vasconcelos
these descriptions must have prompted a wish to clarify the linguistic situation
in Timor. For clarity, we will organize the remainder of this section by author,
chronologically on the basis of the earliest of each author’s commentaries.
2.1 Tancredo Caldeira do Casal Ribeiro
The rst letter in Hugo Schuchardt’s epistolary archive to address the issue at
hand was sent in 1882 by Tancredo do Casal Ribeiro ( nr. 01553), a Portu-
guese agronomist working in Timor.
Casal Ribeiro writes that he enlisted the help of a missionary and, there-
fore, his report may have relied heavily on this missionary’s opinion and ob-
servations. He insists that no particular “dialect” of Portuguese (by which he
appears to be thinking of an L1 variety) formed in Timor but that the small
Timorese population of Dili spoke a “corrupted” form of L2 Portuguese highly
inuenced by their L1 and that, in the hinterland, only a few members of the lo-
cal nobility spoke Portuguese at all. This form of Portuguese in Dili was known
as “lingua da praça”, the word praça referring not only to a marketplace but
also, in the Luso-Asian context, to an important town. Casal Ribeiro includes a
few example sentences:
(1) a. Eu já fala
1s speak
‘I spoke’
b. Eu ha de fala
1s speak
‘I will speak’
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5
6
While Casal Ribeiro states that the verb is formed “usando dos verbos ou no innito ou na
terceira pessoa do singular do tempo presente” [using the verb either in the innitive or in
the 3s of the present tense], he does not provide examples showing a clear innitive source.
Indication of the word’s stress would have helped to disambiguate, as the two forms difer in
this respect in Portuguese, but that is not made clear in the transcription. Furthermore, an
imperative source could also be posited, since the imperatives of these verbs in Portuguese
are equal to 3s forms.
Casal Ribeiro describes this as follows: “A particula a é empregada algumas vezes em vez
de com” [The particle a is sometimes employed instead of com], but he clearly means the
c. Eu ja compra
1s buy
‘I bought’
d. Eu há de compra
1s buy
‘I will buy’
The sentences in (1), as Casal Ribeiro notes, illustrate that the verb forms are
invariable (based on either Portuguese 3s present tense forms or innitives)
and employ the preverbal forms já (based on Ptg. adverb já ‘already’) and há de
(from the Ptg. complex auxiliary há-de ‘will’) to indicate past and future tense,
respectively. With respect to the verb fala in (1a,b), Casal Ribeiro observes that
this form (from the Ptg. verb falar ‘to speak’) is preferred to the Ptg. verb dizer
‘to say’, and that it occurs in a construction with indenite reference as follows:
(2) gente já fala
people say
‘They say [].’
Casal Ribeiro also refers to the occasional replacement of the Portuguese
stage-level and locative copula estar ‘to be (at)’ with the Portuguese possessive
verb ter ‘to have’. The only example provided is of a locative context:
(3) Fulano tem em casa?
so-and-so be house
‘Is so-and-so at home?’
Further examples show that the Portuguese comitative/instrumental prepo-
sition com ‘with’ marks the source with verbs of transfer, a context wherein
Portuguese employs the preposition a:
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8
opposite since, in the examples, it is the standard Portuguese translations that contain a and
the non-standard sentences collected in Timor that use com.
“F” appears to stand for the word Fulano ‘so-and-so’, written in full in the immediately pre-
ceding example sentence, transcribed in (3).
Throughout this article, “Malay” refers to the varieties of Malaysia and of Indonesia.
(4) a. Eu compra com F.
1s buy from so-and-so
‘I buy [something] from so-and-so.’
b. Elles já compra com F.
1s buy from so-and-so
‘They bought [something] from so-and-so.’
Casal Ribeiro also notes that pronouns “vary”, which presumably refers to the
person and number distinctions observed. The corpus does not clarify whether
there were gender distinctions; verbs are invariable, articles are mostly absent
and there is no agreement. Another interesting observation is that the generic
negator can have the form nunca, which in Portuguese is a negative adverb of
frequency meaning ‘never’:
(5) a. Nunca sabe
know
‘[I] don’t know.’
b. Eu nunca tem
1s have
‘I don’t have.’
This short corpus makes important contributions to the question of the pres-
ence of a creole language in Timor. Despite the author’s explicit denial of its
existence, his examples reveal parallels with Asian s elsewhere, although
they are perhaps not clear enough indication that the variety described de-
scends from this group. Let us briey reect on some relevant features.
Absence of verbal inection does typify various Asian s but an inde-
pendent Timorese development can equally well be posited. Since Malay
and Tetun, the other languages most relevant to the context of 19-c. Dili, do
not inect for tense-aspect-mood or subject agreement, it would be natural
for contact acquirers of Portuguese to not readily notice inection. 3s present
forms and innitive forms are especially salient in spoken Portuguese input,
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widely observed in L1 acquisition (Simões and Stoel-Gammon, 1979; Rubino
and Pine, 1998; Davidson and Goldrick, 2003) and L2 acquisition (McCarthy,
2007; Clements, 2009; Ao, 2013) and, of course, constitute common bases in
Ibero-Romance creoles (Holm, 1989: 268; Clements, 2009: 48).
Similarly, regarding the use of já ‘already’ as an aspect marker, Malay and
Tetun have a perfective aspect marker, so it would be natural for contact ac-
quirers of Portuguese to seek out something similar. As for the use of há de as
a future tense marker, it is relevant that future is also expressed with an ele-
ment external to the verb in both Malay and Tetun. In Malay, perfective aspect,
via sudah ‘already’, and future marking, via akan ‘presently, will’, are both pre-
verbal (Crawfurd, 1852: 48–49; Marsden, 1812: 68), as in examples (6) and (7):
(6) saya sudah pergi
1s go
‘I went’ (Shellabear, 1904: 17)
(7) kami akan makan nanti
1p eat soon
‘We will eat soon’ (Sneddon, 1996: 199)
In Tetun, however, perfective aspect is usually post-verbal, as in (8), yet can
also be expressed pre-verbally by the marker foin ‘just’ seen in example (9). The
future is indicated pre-verbally, as in (10):
(8) Hau lés tiha hau nia ropa
1s tear 1s clothes
‘I tore my clothes.’ (adapted from Williams-van Klinken et al., 2002: 36)
(9) Ami foin hán
1p just eat
‘We have just eaten’ (or ‘We are just in the process of eating.’) (Williams-van
Klinken et al., 2002: 37)
(10) Nia sei sosa hahán
3s buy food
‘He will buy food.’ (Hull, 1996: 29)
The motivation for pre-verbal tense and aspect markers in Timorese L2 Por-
tuguese could therefore come from similar constructions in Tetun and Malay.
Nevertheless, when considering the actual forms used, it is interesting to note
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9
10
In these creoles, the verb dizer is often retained only in markers of evidentiality derived
from Ptg. diz(-se) que ‘it is said/appears that’, such as e.g. MalCP impersonal quotative
verb diski or Sri Lanka Portuguese reportative clitic ski (Smith 1979: 208).
Southeast Asian English displays a similar tendency, using got in locative and possessive
functions (Platt and Weber, 1980: 61, 181).
that tense (-aspect) markers based on já and há-de are found in Asian s else-
where (Ferraz, 1987: 350f). Perfective já or a derivation thereof is widespread
in the group, whereas future marking by a form of há-de is restricted to the
northern Indo-Portuguese creoles of Daman and Diu (Clements and Koontz-
Garboden, 2002: 220; Cardoso, 2009: 148f), with other Asian s using a future
marker derived from Ptg. logo ‘later, immediately, then’.
However, the past currency of há-de in Asian contexts is revealed in the fact
that even creoles that do not use a cognate of há-de to mark future (such as
those of Sri Lanka and Malacca) have a special future negator derived from its
negated version, não há-de (see section3).
The preference for the verb falar over dizer to express ‘to say/tell’ is equally
interesting, as this is also common to most Asian s, and may be exemplied
by those of Korlai, Cochin, Cannanore, Sri Lanka, Malacca, Tugu and Macau.
This could be a further point in favour of Asian inuence in Timor but, in
fairness, there are also plausible alternative explanations for the prevalence
of falar over dizer. To begin, from an L2 learner’s viewpoint, Portuguese falar
ofers salience advantages over dizer because of its higher paradigmatic regu-
larity. Furthermore, the use of falar for ‘to say/tell’ seems surprising in the light
of modern standard European Portuguese, but falar may have been dominant
in the Portuguese used throughout Asia (and elsewhere, cf. a similar use in
modern Brazilian Portuguese) from the 16-c. onwards.
The syncretism of ter ‘have’ and estar ‘be, be located’ also has a broad par-
allel in the Asian s (Ferraz, 1987: 353–354). Yet, both Malay and Tetun also
express these functions through a single verb, so a speaker of these languages
acquiring Portuguese as L2 in a contact situation would have some predisposi-
tion for such a conation.
The absence of articles and of agreement mentioned by Casal Ribeiro are
also observed in L2 acquisition of Portuguese, and in acquisition of L1 Por-
tuguese with contact L2 Portuguese input (Baxter, 2002), and are common in
Asian s. In the context of Dili, these features could also just be interpreted
as products of L2 acquisition involving transfer from the L1, plus the fact that
low phonological saliency of the Portuguese denite article would hinder its
acquisition in an informal setting. Neither Malay nor Tetun have agreement
morphology or dedicated articles.
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There remain two items mentioned by Casal Ribeiro that may be more
promising in support of a creole connection. The rst is the use of the preposi-
tion com with source (verbs of transfer). As a marker of benefactive arguments,
a form derived from Ptg. com ‘with’ is common to the creoles of Malacca and
Tugu (Baxter, 1995; Maurer, 2011) and occurs with the same function in 19-c.
texts of MacCP. It displays multifunctionality in these varieties, representing
‘to, with, and’ and, in MalCP, may mark a human goal (Baxter, 1995). Whereas
Tetun lacks a similar item, in colloquial varieties of Malay, the use of sama
‘with’ as an object marker is widespread, and in Riau Malay (Gil, 2004: 10) and
Malacca vernacular Malay sama can mark an animate source. So, the use of
com noticed by Casal Ribeiro could be an extension of Southeast Asian use,
inuenced by Malay.
The nal item mentioned is the negator nunca, which is cognate with the
main clause negator in the creoles of Malacca, Tugu and Macau (Baxter, 1990a),
also occurs in the South Asian varieties of Sri Lanka (Smith, 1979), and in Co-
chin and Cannanore functions as a dedicated past tense negator (Krajinović,
2015: 53). The phonological salience of Portuguese nunca would facilitate its in-
clusion in a contact-acquired L2, as happened in the so-called Língua de Preto
‘Black Language’ of the 16 c., which Kihm and Rougé (2013) consider an L2
Basic Variety of Portuguese developed by Africans in Portugal. Although, theo-
retically, it could have been developed locally, this coincidence may suggest
the inuence of a migrant creole. There is no motive in the substrates for this
feature, whether in a formally similar negator or in any syncretism between
a generic negation (with la or lae in Tetun Dili) and temporal negation (for
which Tetun Dili has borrowed the term nunka from Ptg nunca ‘never’).
While we have indicated the possibility of local formation of certain fea-
tures identied by Casal Ribeiro, with potential substrate inuence, it is im-
portant to stress that creole and L2 contact varieties of Portuguese did develop
in the string of Portuguese ‘bases’ or staging posts around Timor (Baxter, 1996).
So, in the pool of models available in Timor, crystalized pidgin or genuine L1
creole verb forms, markers derived from já and há-de, and a negator from
nunca are likely to have been present.
2.2 José dos Santos Vaquinhas
Hugo Schuchardt’s correspondence also includes letters from José dos Santos
Vaquinhas, a Portuguese military man and colonial administrator who spent
long periods in Timor and served as interim governor of the colony in 1881–1882
(Cardoso and Sousa, 2015). His interest in philological matters is clear from his
contributions (from 1883 onwards) to the journal of the Sociedade de Geograa
de Lisboa. In addition to his correspondence with Schuchardt, Vaquinhas also
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provided Adolfo Coelho with linguistic data collected in Macau. He had an
interest in the indigenous languages of Timor, as is evident from the fact that
Rafael das Dores, author of one of the earliest dictionaries of Tetun (see 2.4),
acknowledges his assistance with linguistic notes.
Schuchardt’s archive contains 7 letters from Vaquinhas, addressing not only
the issue of in Timor but also in Macau (with which he was very familiar,
having resided there), Flores and Malacca. The rst letter relevant here is clas-
sied as anonymous ( nr. B0022) and lacks date and location. However,
Vaquinhas was clearly the author and it probably accompanied a manuscript
of the Epistle to the Corinthians ( nr. 2614) purportedly in the Portuguese-
based creole of Malacca, which is indeed signed by Vaquinhas and dated:
Macau, November 3rd, 1884. Aside from the consistency in the handwriting
of both documents, the anonymous letter gives biographical information (Va-
quinha’s impending return to Timor and the near-publication of a particular
article) veriable elsewhere.
This is an important letter because Vaquinhas not only conrms the exis-
tence of a creole language in Timor, but also in Batavia as well as on Flores and
surrounding islands:
[…] eu mesmo ouvi fallar em Batavia o portuguez corrupto e é por isso
que assim o asseverei tambem nas minhas cartas, dirigidas á Sociedade
de Geographia de Lisboa, […] e as pessoas que negam que em Batavia
se falla o portuguez por aquella fórma, desconhecem por certo a língua
portugueza e sobre tudo o que seja o portuguez corrupto; pois de con-
trario não posso explicar como haja quem negue a existencia de um tal
facto. […] Eu tambem posso assegurar a V Ex. que n’alguns pontos da ilha
Flores e n’outras proximas se falla ainda o mesmo portuguez corrupto, o
que tive occasião de observar durante 16 annos que vivi na Oceania […]
[[…] I myself heard the corrupted Portuguese being spoken in Batavia,
and that is why I have also asserted that in my letters addressed to the
Sociedade de Geographia de Lisboa, […] and the people who deny that
Portuguese is spoken in such a fashion in Batavia certainly do not know
the Portuguese language nor, above all, what corrupted Portuguese is;
otherwise, I cannot explain how there can be anyone who denies the ex-
istence of this fact. […] I can also assure Your Excellency that the same
corrupted Portuguese is still spoken in some parts of the island of Flores
and other ones close by, which I had a chance to observe in the 16 years in
which I lived in Oceania […]]
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11
For Vaquinhas, “corrupted Portuguese” is equivalent to his use of “creole”, as evidenced by
the interchangeable use of the two expressions in letter nr. 02615.
This extract is signicant for validating the vitality of in Batavia (conrmed,
among other indications, by Schuchardt (1890)) and in the Lesser Sunda is-
lands. But it also reveals that the identication of a particular linguistic variant
as a “creole” was problematic, and that obtaining the relevant information
was challenging:
Se o viajante não entender algum dialecto ou deixar de ter bom inter-
prete e não visitar o interior das ilhas como já disse, obterão sempre in-
formações erradas e inexactas do primeiro pantomineiro ou cicerone
que se faz comprehender ao viajante para lhe apanhar algumas moe-
das de prata—Das más informações resulta que muitas pessoas negam
a existência do que não investigam ou não entenderam e ainda mais
atrevem-se depois a pôr em duvida o testemunho occular de quem as
investigou elmente.
[If a traveller does not understand any of the dialects or fails to enlist a
good interpreter and does not visit the hinterland of the islands, as I have
already mentioned, he will always obtain wrong and inexact information
from the rst charlatan or cicerone who makes himself understood to
get a few silver coins from him—Such bad information results in many
people denying the existence of what they did not research or under-
stand and, what is more, daring to question the eyewitness evidence of
those who researched it faithfully.]
This may begin to explain some of the diversity of opinions among the authors
studied here. Recall that Casal Ribeiro (who spent much less time in Timor
than Vaquinhas) denied the development of any specically Timorese L1 form
of Portuguese or ; and another of Schuchardt’s correspondents, the Dutch
Austronesianist George Karel Niemann, wrote in 1883 ( nr. 7845):
Herr Humme, der mehrere Jahre resident auf Timor war, hat mir bestim-
mt gesagt dass weder auf dem holländisches Timor noch bei den schwar-
zen Portugiesen auf Flores ein portugiesisches Jargon gesprochen wird;
nur nden sich in dem auf Timor and Flores gesprochenes Malaiischen
mehrere Portugiesische Wörter und Ausdrücke.
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12
The past tense reading is given by Vaquinhas in his translation of this sentence.
[Mister Humme, who resided in Timor for several years, has assured me
that neither in Dutch Timor nor among the black Portuguese of Flores is
a Portuguese jargon spoken; one only nds in the Malay spoken in Timor
and Flores several Portuguese words and expressions.]
Vaquinhas, however, takes an absolutely contrary position when he writes
( nr. B0022):
Eu devo voltar para Timor em maio ou junho de 1885 e logo que ali che-
gue enviarei os esclarecimentos que puder obter e que me são pedidos
por V Ex.ª com relação aos dialectos de Timor e da língua creoula fallada
na praça de Dilly-Timor.
[I shall return to Timor in May or June 1885 and, as soon as I get there, I
will send you any clarications I am able to obtain and which Your Ex-
cellency requests of me concerning the dialects of Timor and the creole
language spoken in the town of Dili-Timor.]
Vaquinhas kept his promise. In a letter ( nr. 2615) from Dili in November
1885, he wrote:
Eu envio incluso uns apontamentos do portuguez crioulo fallado em
Dilly
[I have enclosed some notes of the creole Portuguese spoken in Dili]
These notes, unfortunately, are no longer to be found in Schuchardt’s archive.
However, some of the data is repeated in Vaquinhas’ subsequent letter (
nr. 2616), sent from Macau in 1886, in answer to some of Schuchardt’s queries
based on the original notes:
(11) Pidibença,dabença
askblessinggiveblessing
‘Ask for the blessing’, ‘Give the blessing’
(12) Manda bem da recados
order come give message/greeting.
‘Made (me) come give messages/greetings.’
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13
14
Idem.
These non-agreeing verb forms are accounted for in terms of the delayed acquisition of
the semantic features of person and number, and the transitional role of 3s and root in-
nitive in constructing grammars during the acquisition of Spanish and Portuguese. Cle-
ments (2009) and Nunes (2013) make signicant contributions to our understanding of
such verb forms, by identifying potential triggers in the input to acquisition, in terms of
salience and frequency in natural speech as discussed by Siegel (1997).
(13) Manda bem pidi bença
order come ask blessing
‘Made (me) come ask for the blessing.’
These examples display verbs based on the 3s or imperative forms of the Portu-
guese verb (or perhaps the innitive, in all cases except for bem, see footnote5),
reminiscent of Casal Ribeiro’s comments on the form of Portuguese spoken in
Dili. Here too, the examples match other varieties of Creole Portuguese in Asia
(Baxter, 1996). Additionally, the word bença ‘blessing’ is common to Macau
(Senna Fernandes and Baxter, 2001: 58), as is the greeting pidi bença ‘ask for the
blessing’ (Mário Nunes, p.c.).
However, the verb forms also correspond to recurrent solutions in L1 and
L2 acquisition. Research on the acquisition of Portuguese and Spanish pro-
vides evidence of a phase in which non-agreeing verbs derived from 3s play
a signicant role in L1 acquisition (Simões and Stoel-Gammon, 1979; Slobin,
1985; Radford and Ploennig-Pacheco, 1995; Pratt and Grinstead, 2007) and in L2
acquisition (Bybee, 1995; Garavito, 2003; Montrul, 2004; McCarthy, 2006; Mory,
2008). Non-agreeing verbs derived from innitives are also attested in L1 and
L2 acquisition research on Portuguese and Spanish (Liceras, Valenzuela and
Díaz, 1999; Ezeizabarrena, 2002; Montrul, 2004; Kupisch and Rinke, 2008).
Non-agreeing generalized 3s verbs, and innitive bases, may also be observed
in diverse contact varieties with histories of L2 acquisition. Examples include
the contact Portuguese of the Xingu indigenous reserve in Brazil (Emmerich,
1984; Mattos e Silva et al., 1988), the Portuguese of the Tongas of São Tomé (Bax-
ter, 2002); Spanish in contact with indigenous languages in Mexico (Garavito
and Atoche, 2006), and Afro-Bolivian and Afro-Peruvian Spanish (Lipsky, 2008;
Sessarego, 2015).
The following examples, however, provide direct evidence of presence,
or of input originating from , with the word iloutro:
(14) Criança iloutro
child 3p
‘The children.’ Or ‘That/those child/children.’
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15
Here, Vaquinhas’ letter ofers dá bença ‘give the blessing’ as an alternative to pidi bença
‘ask for the blessing’; however, we have omitted it because his translation only refers to the
second option.
(15) a. Pidi bença, dá bença na criança iloutro
ask blessing give blessing child 3p
‘(I) ask for the blessing and (I) give the blessing to the children.’
b. Criança iloutro, pidi bença na nona
child 3p ask blessing lady
‘The children ask the Lady for the blessing’
(16) Nai iloutro bai falla
senhor 3p go speak
‘That/those gentleman/gentlemen are going to speak.’ or ‘That/those
gentleman/gentlemen said.’
The form iloutro, from Ptg. ele(s) + outro(s) ‘3m(p) + other’, establishes a clear
link with Asian s elsewhere. Cognates of iloutro are widespread in Asian
and occur in Bidau data from the 1950s (Baxter, 1990a), but only as a 3p
pronoun. However, the constructions criança iloutro in (14) and (15), and nai
iloutro in (16), show iloutro functioning as a post-nominal pluralizer (compet-
ing with the Portuguese-like pluralizing sux -s in (12)) but also, judging from
Vaquinhas’ alternative translations, possibly interpreted as a distal (singular
or plural) demonstrative. This combination of functions is partly paralleled in
Tetun, where the plural marker sira is post-nominal and conveys a notion of
deniteness (Williams-van Klinken et al., 2002: 30); of particular interest, how-
ever, is that sira also functions as the 3p pronoun (Williams-van Klinken et al.,
2002: 20). Clearly, for iloutro to be used as a plural marker, it must rst have
been used in a pronominal function and, although Vaquinhas’ corpus is too
short to reect this, it is likely that it was also used as such at the time.
At the same time, the use of preposition na in (15) is curious, as it has no ex-
act parallel in the languages relevant for Timor nor the Asian s. Furthermore,
the selection of na in these contexts appears to contradict the data provided by
Casal Ribeiro, wherein human objects occur with the preposition com (see ex-
ample (4)). In fact, as mentioned earlier, most Asian varieties— including,
in Southeast Asia, those of Malacca, Batavia/Tugu and Macau—mark human
objects with a preposition derived from Ptg. com ‘with’ (Baxter, 1995; Clements,
2009; Maurer, 2011). In these creoles, na is usually a generalized locative prepo-
sition meaning ‘to, in, at’ (Hancock, 1975).
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16
17
Williams-van Klinken et al. (2002: 28) indicate that ba is the unstressed equivalent of the
verb bá ‘go’.
Our gloss and translation.
Turning to the substrates, both Malay and Tetun mark human oblique argu-
ments. Although colloquial Malay varieties employ the preposition sama ‘with’
(Gil, 2004), in Tetun Dili, the use of preposition ba could underlie the use of
na in example (15), as it introduces human obliques and directed locations, as
in examples (17) and (18):
(17) Ita husu bensa ba padre
1p ask blessing priest
‘We ask the blessing of the priest (We ask Father’s blessing)’ (Catharina
Williams-van Klinken, p.c.)
(18) Nia haruka surat ida ba Dili
3s send letter there to Dili
‘He sends/sent a letter (there) to Dili’ (Hull, 1996: 28)
The overlap of these functions in Tetun ba may have induced an overexten-
sion of the Portuguese locative na to indicate human indirect objects, perhaps
aided by the fact that the Portuguese preposition that marks indirect objects,
a, is also a locative preposition (ir a Timor ‘go to Timor’). This interpretation
predicts the locative use of na in this variety of Portuguese, which could be
upset by the fact that the only instance of a locative preposition in Vaquinhas’
corpus has the form no:
(19) No baixo de carteira
(+.m) under of desk
‘Beneath the desk.’
The word no here could be simply a contextual/idiolectal variant of na or, less
likely, reect the contraction of a masculine denite article as in Portuguese
no ‘in the’, corresponding to em ‘in’ + o ‘.m’. In any case, locative na is am-
ply attested in references to restructured Portuguese in Timor elsewhere—see
the song transcribed in 2.5 below, and the 1950s Bidau data in Baxter (1990a:
23–24).
The locative compound no baixo ‘beneath’, while paralleled in structure in
Malay di bawah and Tetun iha okos and even Portuguese em baixo, respectively
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18
Vaquinhas explains that this expression is used when onions dried by the sun are revived
when thunderstorms bring rain.
+ ‘under’, also resembles Malacca, Tugu and Macau use; cf. Malacca na
basu.
Another structure exemplied in Vaquinhas’ list is the adjectival predicate,
without a copula and modied by já:
(20) Cebolla já contente
onion happy
‘The onion is/has become happy’.
This construction is common to East/Southeast Asian s, yet also a feature
of Malay (21):
(21) dia sudah bahagia
3s happy
‘(s)he is happy now’ (S. Pillai, p.c. 27.1.2015)
In Tetun Dili the proximate perfective marker foin ‘just, only just’ may occur
preceding a change-of-state predication where a strong contrast of states is
involved:
(21) Nia simu tiha osan, nia foin kontente
3s receive money 3s . happy
‘After receiving the money, s/he is now/nally happy.’ (A. Correia,
p.c. 9.4.2015)
Finally, example (23) displays two interesting features:
(23) Anda tudo terra Dilly mais cidade
wander all land Dili even town
‘Wander everywhere and even in the town of Dili.’
Similarly to this example, in various Asian s, such as those of Diu or Sri Lan-
ka, complements of verbs of motion do not necessarily take a locative marker.
In Southeast Asian s, the verb bai introduces directional locations without
a preposition, and anda takes a preposition if the referred location is non-goal
(e.g. andá na rua ‘walk in the street’). Otherwise, anda frequently takes a serial
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19
The authors thank MalCP speakers Diego de Silva and Sara Santa Maria for clarications.
‘go’ or ‘come’ according to the direction of the motion, as described for MalCP
(Baxter 1990b: 176) and also recorded in (Baxter (1990a: 22). However, the
structure in (23) is also an option in MalCP if the goal is indenite. While col-
loquial varieties of Malay permit absence of a preposition following the verb
pergi ‘go’, generally they do not permit the verb jalan ‘walk, go’ without a prepo-
sition (Novi Djenar, p.c. 25.3.2015). In contrast, some sociolects of Tetun Dili do
permit absence of a preposition with indenite goals (24), so the occurrence of
this feature in Vaquinhas’ Timor corpus is hardly surprising.
(24) João la’o lemo – lemo, ne’e-duni ami la hetan nia
João walk everywhere therefore 1p() nd him
‘John walked everywhere, so we can’t nd him.’ (A. Correia, p.c. 9.4.2015)
The second feature of interest here is the use of mais. Vaquinhas’ interpreta-
tion is that this should be derived from Ptg. mais ‘more’ but used here as an ad-
verb meaning ‘even’. Another possible interpretation is that this should be an
(incorrectly transcribed) instance of Tetun mai ‘come, to, in, for’ (Dores, 1907:
161; Hull, 1996: 28), in which case it would be providing the directional element
to a typical serial verb construction (with anda). In either case, its position is
unexpected if, accepting the translation provided by Vaquinhas, we consider
that Dilly and cidade constitute a single meaning ‘the city of Dili’ made
discontinuous by the interposition of mais. Other interpretations are possible,
however, that would not treat these two items as a single .
Among Vaquinhas’ reports published in the journal of the Sociedade de Geo-
graa de Lisboa, only one provides an item of linguistic data for our study:
Diz-se no patois timorense sol-sube e sol-cáe, correspondendo aquella
designação ao lado que o sol nasce e esta ao lado que o sol se põe; por
e xemplo: nascente chamam sol-sube, poente sol-cáe. (Vaquinhas, 1885: 63)
[In the Timorese patois one says sol-sube and sol-cáe, the former term
corresponding to the side from which the sun rises and the latter to the
side in which the sun sets; for example: they call east sol-sube and west
sol-cáe.]
What is at play here is the lexicalization of two predicates literally meaning
‘sun rises’ (sol ‘sun’ + sube ‘rise’) and ‘sun falls’ (sol + cae ‘fall’). These are calques
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20
The examples retain the original spelling.
from Tetun, in which lorosae ‘east’ literally signies ‘sun’ + ‘rise’ and loromonu
‘west’ literally signies ‘sun’ + ‘fall’.
2.3 João Gomes Ferreira
In a letter ( nr. 3853) from Dili sent on November 3rd 1885, the Vigário Geral
‘Vicar General’, Fr. João Gomes Ferreira, provided Hugo Schuchardt with valu-
able comments on the use of Portuguese by the Timorese in Dili. As this source
was discussed in Baxter (1990a), we will merely underline certain details which
are signicant to the present paper. For a full transcription of the letter and
some introductory remarks, see Sousa (2013).
The Vigário Geral’s letter refers to the L2 Portuguese of indigenous Timorese.
He notes that Tetun is spoken in Dili, yet most Timorese there understand Por-
tuguese and speak it in a broken manner (“estropeadamente”), some better,
some worse (“uns melhor, outros peór”). He observes that this corrupt Portu-
guese (“portuguez corrompido”) is typied by inuence from the structure of
the indigenous language (i.e. Tetun), to which he attributes its poor number
and gender agreement. The letter contains a list of sentences in Portuguese
with their parallel translations in Tetun and Portuguez corrompido, following
which the Vigário Geral asserts that the latter is essentially a direct translation
of Tetun. He claims that the Portuguez corrompido is not a language (i.e. an L1),
as the Timorese do not speak it among themselves:
[…] comparando o portuguez corrompido com o tetum, vê-se claramente
que esse modo de fallar é mais ou menos a traducção á letra do mesmo
tetum. E em todo caso não constitue uma lingua—Em Macau dá-se uma
cousa inteiramente diferente: os Macaistas fallam o portuguez corrom-
pido, mas é essa a lingua d'elles. Não têem outra.
[[…] upon comparing the corrupted Portuguese with Tetun, one sees
clearly that that way of speaking is more or less a literal translation of
Tetun. And, in any case, it does not constitute a language—In Macau
something entirely diferent happens: the Macanese speak corrupted
Portuguese, but that is their language. They have no other.]
Nevertheless, the examples in the letter contain items found in varieties of
in East and Southeast Asia, and some in South Asian s as well, which we list
here:
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21
Modern MalCP employs yo-sa (1s-) ‘my’.
(i) Post-nominal genitive: Antonio sua bufalo ‘Antonio’s bufalo’; and, nota-
bly, mim sua ‘mine’;
(ii) Invariant verbs generally derived from 3s present indicative Portuguese
forms: e.g. bai/vai ‘go’, bem/vem ‘come’, visita ‘visit’: eu quer vai Lahane
visita vosso reverendissimo ‘I want to go to Lahane to visit your grace’;
(iii) Directed motion serial verb: Anda bem aqui ‘come here’;
(iv) Copula tem: pôrco tem gordo ‘the pig is fat’; but also copula são: De quem
são este cavallo? ‘Whose horse is this?’;
(v) Copula-less adjectival predicate: Minha sombreilo nunca bom ‘my hat is
no good’;
(vi) Negator nunca, as in the previous example.
Whereas, for many items on the list, the potential for local contact L2 derivation
must be recognized, the possibility of input cannot be ignored. Indeed, the
example mim sua in item (i), which consists of an oblique personal pronoun
mim plus a genitive marker sua, resembles one of the 1s genitives common to
earlier Southeast Asian . Thus, 19 century materials register minha su(a) in
MalCP, and me sua in Tugu ; whereas 18 century materials register mienja
soea in Batavia (Baxter and Bastos, 2012: 56–59; Maurer, 2011: 28–29).
For a discussion of how the texts provided by Gomes Ferreira compare with
the other sources discussed here, see section3 below.
2.4 Rafael das Dores
Some 15 years after Schuchardt, Leite de Vasconcelos also exchanged letters
with informants familiar with Portuguese Timor, regarding the linguistic land-
scape of the colony. One such correspondent was Rafael das Dores, who wrote
a Tetun-Portuguese dictionary and, encouraged by Leite de Vasconcelos, began
publishing it in the journal of the Sociedade de Geograa de Lisboa in 1904.
Dores was a military man who served a long time in Macau and Timor. He
visited Timor four times: in 1871–1873, 1878–1879, 1886 and 1891–1892 (Dores,
1903: 7–8). His correspondence with Leite de Vasconcelos, however, occurred
in 1901, in Portugal. He also resided in Macau, where, evidently, he became ac-
quainted with MacCP. In his rst letter ( nr. 7026), nonetheless, he is ada-
mant that no such variety was spoken in Timor:
Em Timor os indígenas que fallam portuguez, fallam-o exactamente
como nós, não havendo patuá, como em Macau e nas outras colónias.
[…] Em vista do que expus atrás já V. Ex.ª vê que sobre Timor, nada lhe
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posso proporcionar com relação à língua portugueza alli fallada; quan-
to porèm a Macau, estou prompto a verter-lhe no patuá, os textos que
me indicar, assim como na língua portugueza fallada pelos chinas que é
coisaperfeitamente distinta da língua de Macau como creio que V. Ex.ª
já sabe.
[In Timor, the natives who speak Portuguese speak it exactly like us, there
not being any patois, as in Macau and in the other colonies. […] Given
what I have explained before, Your Excellency will understand that, con-
cerning Timor I cannot provide you with anything about the Portuguese
language spoken there; however, with respect to Macau, I am ready to
translate the texts you send me into patois, as well as into the Portuguese
language spoken by the Chinese, which is a very diferent thing from the
language of Macau, as I believe Your Excellency already knows.]
Considering the linguistic data analyzed above, it seems strange that someone
so familiar with MacCP and Macau L2 Portuguese varieties should be so ada-
mant about the absence of any such variation in Timor. Aware of Afonso de
Castro’s description, Leite de Vasconcelos must have pointed out that this po-
sition contradicted other sources because, in his second letter ( nr. 7027),
Dores continues:
Quanto ao que me diz sobre o crioulo em Timor, conheço e possuo o livro
d’Afonso de Castro. Este na curta demora que teve em Timor e sem sahir
de Lahane, não teve tempo d’estudar practicamente tudo que tratou no
seu livro, que mais parece coordenado d’escritos anteriores. […] Eu estive
4 vezes em Timor, e pela 1ª vez demorei-me perto de 3 annos, e percor-
rendo o litoral, e a maior parte do interior, não encontrei o tal crioulo de
que elle falla […]
[As for what you say about the creole of Timor, I do know and own Afonso
de Castro’s book. In his short stay in Timor, and without leaving Lahane,
he did not have the time to study practically everything that he addresses
in his book, which seems to be collated from previous writings. […] I was
in Timor 4 times and the rst time stayed for nearly 3 years, and, having
travelled the coast and most of the hinterland, I did not nd that creole
he talks about […]]
Dores does concede, however, that a creole was present in Timor, but that it
was the creole of Macau, introduced by Macanese who settled in Timor:
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De facto algumas raparigas vindas do interior para creadas, e servindo
em casa de pessoas de Macau residentes em Timor, aprendem palavras
de crioulo macaísta, mas tanto estas raparigas como as próprias pessoas
de Macau, com o tempo chegam a fallar o portuguez como nós, o que eu
observei, e mesmo se nota em Macau, nas senhoras que regressam de
Timor. […] Em vista do exposto, apesar da minha manifesta incompeten-
cia em philologia, continuo com a convicção de que não existe em Timor
um crioulo proprio.
[In fact, some girls who come from the hinterland as servants and work
inthe homes of people from Macau residing in Timor learn some wordsin
Macanese creole, but both these girls and the Macanese themselves in
time come to speak Portuguese like us, which I have observed and can
even be seen in Macau, in the ladies who return from Timor. […] In view
of the above, despite my manifest incompetence in philology, I am still
convinced that there is no specic creole in Timor.]
It is plausible that, familiar with Macau Creole, Dores simply assumed that any
similar variety was either Macau Creole or a derivation of it, thereby failing
to identify the specically Timorese creole for which we have evidence in the
form of and the data provided by other coeval sources (see 2.5. below).
While his letters to Leite de Vasconcelos do not contain any linguistic samples
for our study, they do add complexity to the linguistic ecology of turn-of-the-
century Timor. Specically, his comments underline the importance of the
Macanese community in Timor at the time; and they also suggest that, among
a particular section of the colonial community, Portuguese exerted a strong
inuence, to the point of replacing the creole within traditional Macanese
families.
2.5 Alberto Osório de Castro
As noted, Alberto Osório de Castro—who resided in Timor at the very start of
the 20th century following a period in India—was the author of A ilha verde
e vermelha de Timor (Castro, 1943), in which he includes a song in ‘Dili Portu-
guese’ analysed in Baxter (1990a). However, we now know that he had reported
on this variety much earlier and, contrary to Rafael das Dores, stressed the
presence of a creole in Timor. Flores de Coral (Castro, 1908) is essentially a book
of poems, but it also contains a glossary with many facts about the East (espe-
cially the areas which had contact with the Portuguese). In this glossary, under
22
Part of this passage is transcribed in Vasconcelos (1901: 151).
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the entry for “Pantume” (a Southeast Asian poetic form, cf. pantun), Osório de
Castro transcribes a few verses “em português de Dílli” (‘in the Portuguese of
Dili’) (Castro, 1908: 144–145):
Pasterinho verde Green bird
Senta na catapa. Sitting on the catapa tree
Velho olha velha, The old man sees the old woman,
Senta tapa-tapa. Sitting hidden away.
Pástero de lamuca, Emerald dove
Penna girá-sol. Feathers turning towards the sun.
Culpa não foi minha, It was not my fault,
Culpa foi de vós. It was your own fault.
Peixe mata-ôi Mata-ôi sh
Manére no coilão Netted in the lagoon
Tanto fala fala, (It) speaks so much,
Doe de coração The heart aches.
This song is transcribed in his 1943 book. Its particular signicance is that it
points to the mobility of creole elements within the network of Portuguese out-
posts in Asia. Variants of this song, referring to a green bird (usually a parrot) are
widespread in Luso-Asian communities (Jackson, 2012). Just who introduced it
to Timor is impossible to say, but the song does belong to Asian culture.
Linguistically, the song is quite a mixture. We nd some Tetun items, such
as lamuca (Tet. lamuka/lamukan) ‘emerald dove [Chalcophaps indica]’; mata-
ôi (possibly Tet. mata ‘eye’ and oin ‘face’), a kind of sh; manére (possibly Tet.
23
24
25
He mentions the names of other residents who also collected oral traditions in ‘the Portu-
guese of Dili’, still unidentied:
“Prometem-me mais cantigas portuguesas de Dílli os Srs. G. de Araújo e Barreto. Reúne
outros materiaes do inexplorado Folklore de Timor o meu amigo Sr. Alfredo de Pratt,
funccionario da Repartição superior de Fazenda, antigo jornalista, e poeta muito cor-
recto.” (Castro, 1908: 145)
[I am promised some more Portuguese songs from Dili by the gentlemen G. de Araújo
and Barreto. My friend Mr. Alfredo de Pratt, employee of the Treasury Department,
former journalist and a very correct poet, has collected further material from the un-
explored Folklore of Timor.]
Terminalia catappa.
Other possibilities are mota-ain ‘place where river and sea water meet’ or ‘river bank’
(A.Correia p.c. 11.4.2015).
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‘agentive ax’ + nére ‘net’); and coilão (Tet. kolan). Some structures are closely
modeled on Portuguese, e.g. Culpa não foi minha ‘It wasn’t my fault (lit. fault
not was mine)’, with an inected form of the Portuguese copula ser. Other fea-
tures are recognizable from the Asian s, such as the form of the 2s pronoun,
derived from archaic Portuguese vós, or the word pástero ‘bird’ (rather than Ptg.
pássaro). The song also contains reduplication (tapa-tapa ‘(lit. hide~hide ‘hid-
den away’; tanto fala fala ‘(lit. talk~talk ‘continual talking’), common to Asian
varieties, but also to Malay and Tetun. Whether the absence of denite ar-
ticles on the noun phrases is signicant is impossible to say, yet it was noticed
earlier, in the letter from Casal Ribeiro, that this absence was considered typical
of Dili Portuguese spoken by locals, and that Tetun has no dedicated articles.
Coincidentally, Osório de Castro was Leite de Vasconcelos’ relative and nu-
merous letters from Castro are kept in Vasconcelos’ epistolar archive. Two such
letters are relevant here. In the rst ( nr. 4215), Castro refers to the creole
data he published in Flores de Coral and, apparently for the rst time, identies
it explicitly with Dili’s Bidau neighbourhood:
Teria V Ex recebido o meu livro Flores de Coral? Foi um dos primeiros
exemplares que remetti. Lá encontra uma parte sobre linguas timoresas,
e sobre um dialecto crioulo que ninguém ainda descobrira, creio, o por-
tuguês de Bidau.
[Has Your Excellency received my book Flores de Coral? It was one of the
rst copies I dispatched. In it, you will nd a section about the Timorese
languages, and about a creole dialect which, I believe, no one had found
before, the Portuguese of Bidau.]
In another letter ( nr. 24255), undated but sent from Portugal (probably in
the 1920s), Castro transcribes the short creole text in (24), which he describes
as something midwives said to a woman in labour.
(24) Fija, pàciencia, aguenta. Nósse guéra ant’èstè.
child patience withstand 1p- war thus + this
‘Child, patience, hold on (= withstand (the pain)). Our (= a woman’s)
battle is this.
Homem à L’outro pega na arma, vai peleja,
man to the + other take weapon go ght
Men take up arms, go ght,
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mata um com outro. Pèga zagaia, nca
kill one other take spear stab
kill one another. (They) take (the/a) spear, stab/pierce
um com outro, pega tàmên pedra, ponta
one other take also stone throw
one another, (they) also grab stones, throw/shoot at
um com outro. Nósse guéra ant’èstè!
one other 1p- war thus + this
each other (lit. one at the other). Our battle is this!’
Here, two items merit comment as they are typical of Asian s at large. The
rst is the sequence Homem à L’outro, where à L’outro may represent iloutro
‘they’ acting as plural marker—cf. examples (14)–(16) above and related dis-
cussion. The second item is the presence of com where Portuguese would use
the preposition a ‘to’: mata um com outro (Ptg. mata um ao outro). The use of
com with [+human] object s is very much reminiscent of (South)East Asian
(see also 2.2. above), and specically in contexts of reciprocity, as in the fol-
lowing Tugu sentence (Maurer, 2011: 98):
(25) unga abursa kung otru e chura
one hug other and cry
‘They hugged each other and cried.’
The complex ant’èstè is not easy to interpret, but there are several possibili-
ties. The orthography, which indicates a word boundary with the apostrophe
(or, in the later-published version, a space, see Footnote 26), suggests that this
comprises two words: ant(e) + ésté. Most likely, the rst one represents the
Portuguese adverb antes and the second indicates the proximate demonstra-
tive este ‘this’. In addition to being a time adverb meaning ‘before’, antes also
has an adversative meaning of ‘rather, instead’; this use could be reected here,
with the sentence meaning ‘This is our war, rather [than that of men]’. On the
other hand, the transcription seems rather tentative at times—recall the or-
thographic break-up of à L’outro discussed above—and so, the real boundary
may be elsewhere. Another possibility is that ant’èstè consists of antes + te,
standing for the copula described in 2.1 and 2.3 above. In this case, the sentence
would mean ‘Our war is before/prior’, meaning that women’s labour precedes
anything in men’s lives.
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This text is repeated in Castro’s 1943 book, along with three short dia-
logues described as “fragmentos de conversa ouvidas [sic] ao acaso”, ‘fragments
of conversations overheard by chance’ (Castro, 1943: 56). These comprise ex-
changes between mother and daughter (25), between neighbours (26) and be-
tween mother, daughter and daughter’s husband (27):
(25) Ai! mamài, mamài, eu bate meu perna na pedra grande àquêlè
mother mother 1s hit leg stone big
‘Oh, mother, mother, I hit my leg on that big stone’
Ai! lha, vòsse pôde ande cá ou nunca?
daughter 2s can walk here or
‘Oh, daughter, can you come here or not?’
Sê num pôdi vên, en côlo, vên? Nósse anda bai.
if can come lap come 1p walk go
‘If you can’t come, (can I) carry (you)? We are walking there’.
(26) Vósse bai na ôndi?
2s go where
‘Where are you going?’
Eu bai na riba.
1s go above
‘I am going up there.’
Vósse bai faze cuza, bê?
2s go do thing
‘What are you going to do?’
Eu leva êsté cânico, vai sólè águ
1s carry this jar go fetch water
‘I am taking this jar to fetch water’
26
The 1943 version contains minor alterations:
Fijá, pàciênce, aguenta. Nosse guèra ante éstè. Homem à l’outro péga na arma, vai
peleja; mata um com outro. Péga zagaia, nca um com outro, Péga tàmên pedra punta
um com outro. Nósse guéra ante éstè!…
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Vosse tira águ, faze cuza, bê?
2s fetch water, do thing
‘What are you fetching water for?’
Eu tira águ, bai cozinha arroze,
1s fetch water go cook rice
‘I am fetching water in order to cook rice
ântis meu marido ben, cómi
before 1s. husband come eat
before my husband comes to eat’
(27) Cuza bên, mamài?
thing come mother
‘What is happening, mother?’
Ôi, nônôi, seu marido já vên láquêlê!
girl 2s. husband come
‘Hey girl, your husband has come!’
Hou, nónó, bên, senta bê, cómè, bai!
sir come sit eat go
‘Oh, sir, come sit and eat!’
Ó nônôi, tira depressa arrôze,
girl fetch quickly rice
‘Oh, girl, fetch some rice quickly,
eu anta cómi (OR:eu quérè comê)
1s then eat ( 1s want eat )
(and) I will eat’
In addition, Castro (1943) also records two isolated sentences (28) and (29),
the last of which may have been heard in court in connection with his judicial
functions:
(28) Nós bai na ribeira, bê, toma banho.
1p go stream take bath
‘We are going to the stream to bathe.’
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(29) Sim. Vossincelencia, antá minhas alhades fuchiu.
yes your.excellency then 1s.. godchild. ee.
‘Yes. Your Excellency, then my godchild ed.’
These short texts contain further items that establish a connection with Asian
s. The rst concerns negation of the verb podi by a short negator num, in
(25), reminiscent of the reduced negator required with podi in Malaca, Tugu
and Macau, as noted by (Baxter, 1990a: 19), but also found in the South Asian
varieties. The second item is the presence in (25) of the negator nunca in a
tag interrogative, a feature common to MalCP (Baxter, 1988: 187).
As in a wide set of Asian s, the verb is invariable and derived from the Por-
tuguese 3s present tense form (e.g. bai from Ptg. vai ‘goes’), or innitive (comê
in eu quérè comê), and a past reference verb may be preceded by já, as in (27).
The verb also occurs unmarked for tense and aspect, in a past perfective con-
text eu bate meu perna in (25), or in what appear to be present progressive con-
texts, as in Vósse bai na ôndi? in (26). While zero-marked verbs in past contexts
occur in Malacca (Baxter, 1988: 135–135), Tugu (Maurer, 2011: 60–61) and Macau
(Ferraz, 1987: 351), they have only been noted in progressive aspect contexts
in Tugu (Maurer, 2011: 60). However, in Tetun (Williams-van Klinken et al.,
2002: 35) and Malay (Crawfurd, 1852: 48), the interpretation of the tense-aspect
values of zero-marked verbs through utterance context is common. Additional
items suggesting a link with Asian s are found in (26), in the use of the loca-
tive na with locative adverbs in na ôndi and na riba, and the items águ ‘wa-
ter’ and cuza ‘what (thing)’. Whereas the former three items are widespread in
()() and occur in the creoles of Malacca, Tugu and Macau, cuza is com-
mon to MacCP (Senna Fernandes and Baxter, 2001) and has the form kudja in
Batavia (Maurer, 2011: 325).
At the same time, there is evidence of substrate inuence in (26), in the
use of sólè>Malay colek ‘dig out, draw out’, and the Tetun discourse marker bê,
also present in (27)—along with Tetun exclamations ôi and ó, and interjection
hou and the terms of address nónó and nônôi—and (28). Syntactic inuence
27
28
We translate ‘my godchild’ in the singular despite the use of an apparent Portuguese plu-
ral marker -s because Castro himself declares his surprise at hearing a plural referring
to a singular entity.
Hull (1999: 280) observes that noi/nonoi ‘miss’ is a polite term of address for teenage
girls, and (traditionally) for Chinese and Indonesian women, whereas nó ‘master’ is a po-
lite term of address for younger men and teenage boys, as well as Chinese merchants.
Evidently both terms were traditional for higher status addressees, as Dores (1907: 177)
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is also evident in (25), in na pedra grande àquêlè , where the demonstrative
àquêlè occurs after the noun and its modifying adjective, as in Tetun (Williams-
van Klinken et al., 2002: 23) and Malay (Crawfurd, 1852: 28; Sneddon, 1996: 129–
130). In (27), sentence-nal bai ‘go’, coming after a pause, appears to function as
sentence-nal Tetun bá, indicating an invitation for the addressee to perform
an action independent of the speaker (Williams-van Klinken et al., 2002: 48).
Finally, variation is evident. Thus, in addition to the two forms of the verb
vai/bai ‘go’ in (26), the rst person pronoun occurs as nósse in (25), but also
nós in (26), the latter form being common to other South East Asian variet-
ies. The phonological interpretation of nósse is dicult, as is also that of the
second person subject pronoun vósse. With respect to the latter, note that the
form bos of the pronoun, registered in the materials from the (Baxter
1990a: 11), does not occur. Nor is there evidence of the post-nominal genitive
marker found in the materials, as in eli su búfara [3s + + bufalo] ‘his
bufalo’ (Baxter, 1990a: 12–13), as possession in the dialogues is indicated by the
Portuguese possessive determiners meu (in 25/26) and seu (in 27). So, while
these forms resemble possessive pronouns as in (24), in these short texts they
do not seem to be so. They may constitute the mere addition of a paragogic
vowel after an etymologically word-nal sibilant, which nds support in the
apparent addition of a vocalic segment, in a comparable phonetic context, in
the word arroze/arrôze (from Ptg. arroz ‘rice’) in (26/27).
The observed variation and absences may reect ongoing contact with Met-
ropolitan Portuguese. The role of Portuguese in colonial Timor could have mo-
tivated the type of variation one nds in these texts and the development of
diferent idiolects and registers. We may have evidence of this in sentence (29),
which uses standard Portuguese morphemes which are rare elsewherein the
corpus, including plural sux -s in minhas alhades and 3s past tense mor-
phology in the verb fuchiu (cf. Ptg. fugiu). Yet, at least in the case of the plural
markers, this is perhaps a hypercorrection, since Castro claries that the in-
tended reference was singular.
3 Discussion
The relevance of the early archival and published sources under study derives
either from the linguistic snippets they contain or from the authors’ explicit
remarks concerning the linguistic make-up of colonial Timor. In this section,
mentions that noi is used for addressing the daughters of kings, princes and Europeans;
he translates nónó as equivalent to the Portuguese dalgo ‘nobleman’.
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we address these two types of evidence. In 3.1., we discuss the authors’ claims
about the “types” of Portuguese and related language varieties, and in 3.2. we
analyse the linguistic data they provide.
3.1 Portuguese and Creole(s) in Timor
Summarizing their opinions, these ve correspondents express three points
of view:
(i) There was a creole spoken by locals, according to Vaquinhas and Castro,
the latter referring to the language as crioulo de Bidau;
(ii) There was no local creole, but rather L2 Portuguese inuenced by Tetun,
according to Casal Ribeiro and Gomes Ferreira;
(iii) There was no local creole, but MacCP was present and exerted an inu-
ence on local speech, according to Dores.
This suggests that the contact situation in late 19-c. Dili involved a range of
L2 Portuguese and what some authors identied as creole languages. However,
interpreting these remarks is not easy, as we cannot be certain of what the
denitions of “creole” were for the various correspondents. Some observers ap-
pear to have proceeded by comparison with better-known creole languages
spoken elsewhere. MacCP was an important reference but, although Gomes
Ferreira, Dores and Vaquinhas (at least) were well-acquainted with it, they
reached diferent conclusions regarding the existence of a Timorese creole. In
addition, we learn from these sources that MacCP was present in Timor; and
yet, Vaquinhas identies a Timorese variety which he does not associate with
MacCP. Osório de Castro followed suit and explicitly identied this Timorese
creole variety with Bidau, which is an important reference to reconstruct the
language’s development.
Bidau and the community that came to speak have always been de-
scribed as something of a melting pot. In the rst published reference to Bidau
Portuguese, Osório de Castro (1943: 56) writes that the population must have
consisted of
[…] o resto dos cristãos, foragidos da nossa primeira e abandonada
capital de Lifau, no encrave de Oèkussi, mixto de portugueses, goeses,
moluqueses, malaqueses e de conversos de Larentuca.
[the remainder of the Christians, fugitives from our rst and abandoned
capital of Lifau, in the Oekussi enclave, a mix of Portuguese, Goans, Mo-
luccans, Malaccans and converts from Larantuka.]
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Boxer (1947) refers to the 1566 establishment of a Portuguese fort on the is-
land of Solor, adjacent to Flores, and the growth of a community of native
Christians, Portuguese missionaries, soldiers, sailors, and sandalwood traders
from Malacca and Macau, and their local descendants. The initial base for the
founding of this community was Malacca.
Portuguese interests subsequently shifted to Larantuka, where a similar
community formed, dominated by powerful clans of mestiços, referred to as
‘Black Portuguese’, Topazes or Larantuqueiros. In these establishments, Portu-
guese, and L2 contact Portuguese must have been current, alongside Malay
and other local languages. The inux of refugees from the 1660 Dutch conquest
of Makassar introduced further elements from a Portuguese community with
a similar racial and linguistic composition, and most certainly (re)introduced
a ultimately originating in Malacca. Conicts with the Larantuqueiros led
to the removal of the Portuguese administrative base rst to Lifau, in 1701, and
subsequently to Dili, in 1769 (Boxer, 1947). Thomaz (1985) attributed to the
descendants of militiamen originating from the Flores region, the moradores
de Bidau, characterized by Gunn (1999: 111) as Christianized mestiços from the
Solor-Flores region.
In 1859, a treaty consigned Eastern Flores, Adonara and Solor to the Dutch.
Portuguese inuence continued only in the Eastern tip of Flores, at several
locations, including Maumere, Sikka, Konga and Larantuka. As Portuguese
cultural inheritance is still quite visible in Eastern Flores (cf. Viola, 2013), it
is plausible that the Dutch takeover of Larantuka failed to displace the local
Asian-Portuguese. José dos Santos Vaquinhas’ reference to contact Portuguese
on Flores, akin to that of Batavia, was noted in section2.2. Further correspon-
dence from Vaquinhas to Hugo Schuchardt lends additional support to such a
view. An 1885 letter ( nr. 2615) reads:
[…] oportuguez [sic] corrompido que se falla em Larantuka (Flores) é o
mesmo que se falla em Dilly.
[the corrupted Portuguese spoken in Larantuka (Flores) is the same one
that is spoken in Dili.]
And, the following year, Vaquinhas ( nr. 2616) adds:
Muito lhos dos regulos e principaes de Larantuka foram educados nas
escolas portuguezas em Okusse (Lifaú) e da hi veem elles fallar o por-
tuguez criolo em Larantuka. Actualmente estão estudando com os mis-
sionarios portuguezes na escola de Lahane (em Dilly) alguns rapazes de
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Larantuka; não perdem estes nunca o ensejo de aprender oportuguez
[sic] de que com o andar dos annos se esquecem e dá hi vem o fallarem o
portuguez corrupto ou portuguez criolo.
[Many children (sons) of the régulos (local rulers) and princes of Laran-
tuka were educated in the Portuguese schools in Oe-kusse (Lifau) and
because of this come to speak creole Portuguese in Larantuka. Currently,
some boys from Larantuka are studying with the Portuguese missionaries
in the school at Lahane (Dili); they never lose the interest to learn Portu-
guese, which they forget as years go by and thus begin to speak broken
Portuguese or creole Portuguese.]
This report is important because it points to a little-documented connection
between Larantuka and Portuguese Timor as late as the 19 century. Indeed,
Dutch missionaries reported in the mid-19 century that Portuguese had to
be used in religious ceremonies, and noted that, in Larantuka, “a number of
children of the elite had had one or even several years of instruction in Dili”
(Steenbrink, 2002: 74, 109). From Vaquinhas’ letter of 1886, it is clear that links
with Lifau and Dili persisted in the late-19 century.
While the link to Larantuka constitutes an important part of the earlier back-
ground to contact Portuguese in Dili, the Macau connection amply referred to
in our sources is also signicant, as the sandalwood trade mostly exported to
Macau and, after the Dutch conquests of Malacca (1642) and Makassar (1660),
Macau became the nearest ocial Portuguese administrative centre.
The presence of Chinese from Macau and of Macanese (Luso-Chinese mes-
tiços) is noted for the 18 and 19 centuries (Dores, 1901; Matos, 1974; Gunn,
1999). In fact, in one of his publications, Rafael das Dores (1903: 20) observes
that Bidau, aside from housing the majority of the militiamen of the former
Bidau battalion, was also home to most Chinese shop-owners. We assume they
would have had knowledge of L2 Portuguese and, quite possibly, some knowl-
edge of MacCP. For their part, the Macanese were of various sources, includ-
ing convicts, traders and, principally, minor government ocials and military
personnel (Dores, 1901: 2; Thomaz, 1974: 281). That the presence of MacCP in
Dili was noticed by Portuguese observers, and, according to Dores, even in-
uenced Tetun Dili, suggests that its number of speakers may not have been
insignicant. Indeed, Dores (1907: 19, 185) attributes the use of a copula san in
29
In 1861, at locations such as Maumere, where Portuguese-speaking priests had not been
for nearly 25 years, some people still spoke Portuguese (Steenbrink, 2002: 131).
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Tetun to the inuence of MacCP. Thus, there is a strong possibility that MacCP
could have contributed to a pre-existing .
3.2 The Linguistic Evidence in Context
It is valid to reect on how the linguistic features of our late 19- and early 20-
c. sources compare with those discussed in Baxter (1990a) for , and also
which of these are found in the other creoles of (South)East Asia (Malacca,
Macau and Batavia/Tugu). Table1 compares the morphosyntactic features cov-
ered in the 1990 study, the matches in the 19 and early 20 c. correspondence
and their matches in the (South)East Asian varieties. It is divided into 3 sec-
tions: the rst section lists features found in at least one of the early sources,
in the corpus of , and in (South)East Asian s; the second contains
features in the early sources which occur in (South)East Asian s but are not
attested in the corpus; the last section has features attested in the early
sources but not in either the corpus of nor in the other (South)East
Asian s. In each section, the features are ordered in decreasing order of the
number of early sources that attest them. Brackets indicate values that ofer
30
31
32
33
34
35
For details of the values, in the case of Gomes Ferreira’s corpus, see Baxter (1990a).
The verb could also be derived from innitives, in most cases.
Occurs only with the form no.
Based on the form Nósse, see 2.5.
The form iloutro occurs only as a pluralizer, but it is likely that it was also the 3p pro-
noun.In Vaquinhas’ letter of 1884, the translation of examples with iloutro as singular
s—criança iloutro and nai iloutro, which are given alternative translations in Portu-
guese as aquela criança ‘that child’ and aquele senhor ‘that gentleman’, respectively—
suggest that iloutro also had a demonstrative function.
With the form à L’outro, see 2.5.
Comparison of the features observed in the various sources
Baxter 1990
(
1953–4)
Casal
Ribeiro
1882
Vaquinhas
1884, 1886
Gomes
Ferreira
1885
Castro
1908/1943
(South)East
Asian
Verb < Ptg. s forms + (+) + + + +
Locative Prep. na + . (+) + + +
Negator nunca/nunka + + . + + +
+ + . . + (+) +
p < Ptg. ele + outro + . (+) . (+) +
s < Ptg. vós + . . + + +
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Baxter 1990
(
1953–4)
Casal
Ribeiro
1882
Vaquinhas
1884, 1886
Gomes
Ferreira
1885
Castro
1908/1943
(South)East
Asian
Ø number concord + . (.) + . +
Ø Gender concord + . . + + +
Adjectival predicate + . + + . +
Existential/copula
< Ptg. tem
+ + . + . +
Past/perfective < Ptg. já + + + . + +
SerializationV + bai + . . + + +
Serialization V + beng + . + . +
Gender compounds
N + MALE/FEMALE
+ . . + . +
mim + + . . + . +
com + human object . + . . + +
falar ‘say, speak’ . + . . . +
V reduplication . . . . + +
+ . . . + . +
Copula <Ptg. são .. . + . +
Q with inversion . . . + . +
N + s = plural . . +. (+) .
Future marker < Ptg. há-de . + .. . .
na + human object . . + . . .
36
37
38
39
40
There is no evidence for this in the corpus because there are no uniquely plural s dis-
playing a mismatch in number-marking morphology. However, there may be variation
regarding number marking. In example (12), the recados ‘messages’ carries number-
marking, whereas in (14) and (16), where iloutro is interpreted as a demonstrative, its
may be singular or plural without number-marking on other components.
Occurs only in MacCP.
This is an alternative in MalCP, though not the norm.
With the form à L’outro, see 2.5.
While absent in (South)East Asian s, this future marker occurs in Diu and Daman
, with the form a or ad.
some degree of doubt, most of which were duly explained above. Pluses indi-
cate the denite presence of a feature, while a dot means that the corpus does
not attest it.
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In addition to the fact that the list of features in Table1 is necessarily not
exhaustive, the various corpora analysed also difer greatly in size and detail.
Therefore, it is not possible to make a very meaningful quantitative analysis of
the data, but some interesting observations can be made.
The short turn-of-the-century corpora repeat several of the already attested
features which have been invoked to place it within the family of South-
east Asian s. Interestingly, this is true not only of the data provided by those
authors who recognized the development of a Timorese creole (Vaquinhas and
Castro) but even of those who claimed to have been representing L2 Portu-
guese (Casal Ribeiro and Gomes Ferreira). In fact, Gomes Ferreira’s data has
a particularly high incidence of these features: 13 out of 15 in the rst section
of Table1, against 9 in Castro’s data, 5 in Vaquinhas’ and 4 in Casal Ribeiro.
This can partly be explained by the fact that Gomes Ferreira’s corpus is the
largest of the four, but it is signicant that, among these features, there are
several which are dicult to explain solely on the basis of L2 acquisition of
Portuguese by speakers of Tetun or Malay (e.g. the negator nunca, or the post-
nominal genitive).
Thus, it seems reasonable to conrm that data from was present, and
the dichotomy between (in whatever of the varieties present) and L2 Por-
tuguese was not absolute. Of course, as noted, such data could originate
from diferent sources: through general Asian Portuguese which would have
inevitably had contact with creolized varieties, or directly from creole speak-
ers, or from L2 creole or L2 Portuguese in contact with creole. Also, while
certain items (e.g. the form of the verb, the use of existential tem, or reduplica-
tion) could be due to the spread of a (South)East Asian , there may well be a
case for independent development under inuence from Tetun or Malay.
Nevertheless, we do have the testimonies of Vaquinhas, Castro and Dores,
conrming the presence of at least two varieties of : that of Bidau and that
of Macau.
While the corpus from the 1950s remains the primary corpus of ,
the turn-of-the-century data adds a few new items to the discussion. Some of
these, the ones noted in section2 of Table1, have the potential to strengthen
the case for the inuence of (South)East Asian speech forms on the is-
land. Although Table1 does not indicate features of Asian from outside the
(South) East Asian region, the fact is that the South Asian varieties do not
provide as good a pool for explaining the potential introduction of elements
into Timor. Many of the (South)East Asian features analysed can also be
41
Carvalho (2001) claims that the former presence of accounts for particular features in
Timorese L1/L2 Portuguese today.
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found in South Asia (e.g. the locative preposition na, the negator derived from
nunca and existential from tem, absence of gender concord, the postnominal
genitive,…), but some (such as the copula derived from são, or serialization
with bai and beng) cannot. The only feature which might require a reference
to South Asian is the future tense marker derived from Ptg. há-de ‘shall’, in-
existent in the (South)East Asian s but found in those of Daman and Diu, in
India. However, an independent development of this form in Timor from spo-
ken Portuguese input is conceivable. Furthermore, there are indications that,
even though derivations of Ptg. logo came to dominate as markers of future
tense in Asian s, há-de must have played a role too from very early on; even
creoles that do not have a cognate of há-de to mark future tense, such as those
of Malacca, Tugu or Macau, have a special future negator nadi or nada derived
from Ptg. não há-de (see Baxter 1996: 302).
4 Conclusion
The set of testimonies reviewed here represent diferent perspectives on the
use of “Portuguese” by diferent sections of non-Europeans in the sociolinguis-
tic setting of 19- and early 20-c. Dili, and Portuguese Timor at large. These
perspectives capture the use of L2 Portuguese, displaying evidence of both in-
dependent contact L2 solutions under the inuence of Malay and Tetun, and
of the presence of genuine Asian items widely attested elsewhere. This sug-
gests that some L2 Portuguese may have been an L2 dimension of a creole or,
in the least, had signicant exposure to creole features. Certainly, some such
features could have been present in general Asian Portuguese usage, having
originated from contact between Portuguese speakers and creoles or pidgins
in the various other locations where such language varieties are known to have
existed, given maritime contacts between the ports under Portuguese control
or inuence. However, it is also reasonable to assume that items among those
listed in Table1 may well have stemmed directly from use in Timor, from the
of groups originally foreign to Timor.
The testimonies do conrm the presence of two creole-speaking groups: the
residents of Bidau, and the Macanese, the latter having exerted inuence on
the speech of locals, as mentioned by João Gomes Ferreira and reported else-
where by Dores (1907). That Osório de Castro does not associate the Bidau com-
munity with the Macanese seems signicant, in the sense that other sources
(for example Gunn (1999)), stress the historical link between the Bidau com-
munity and the Eastern Flores region. In Bidau, this creole may have come into
contact with MacCP or Chinese L2 varieties of Portuguese or MacCP but, in the
end, Thomaz’s (1985) view that the two groups are not connected still holds.
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Our study also reveals that, at the time these early reports were produced,
there must have been a fair degree of variation in the understanding of what
constituted a creole language. Thus, even authors whose linguistic contribu-
tions contain many features which are recognizable in a later corpus of
and in (South)East Asian s may fail to classify these varieties as creoles.
Therefore, in order to interpret the signicance of these sources for the issue
of the development of a Timorese or of Timorese varieties of L2 Portuguese,
it becomes essential to do a wide comparative study of the linguistic features
they record.
Aknowledgments
The authors are greatly indebted to the Department of Linguistics and the
Hugo Schuchardt Archiv of the Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, Austria, for
organizing the 2013 workshop on Asian Ibero-Romance Creoles which facili-
tated our access to documents on 19-century Timor. The Museu Nacional
de Arqueologia (Lisbon) also deserves our gratitude for making available the
materials of the Leite de Vasconcelos collection. For discussion of Tetun-Dili
examples, the authors thank Dr. Catharina Williams van-Klinken, Dr. Adérito
Correia, and Prof. Geofrey Hull, as well as three anonymous reviewers. For dis-
cussions of Malay examples, gratitude is expressed to Prof. Stefanie Pillai, Dr
Novi Djenar, and Prof. Alexander Adelaar. Naturally, all responsibility for the
views presented in this article rests with its authors. Alan N. Baxter’s research is
supported by grant 307947/2013-0 of the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento
Cientíco e Tecnológico (q), Brazil. Hugo C. Cardoso’s research was nanced
by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia () under the Investigador
programme (/01009/2012).
Abbreviations
1p rst person plural
1s rst person singular
2s second person singular
3p third person plural
3s third person singular
article
Bidau Creole Portuguese
Creole Portuguese
(i.e. Portuguese-lexied)
demonstrative
discourse marker
exclusive
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future
interjection
L1 rst language
L2 second language
locative
masculine
MacCP Macau Creole Portuguese
MalCP Malacca Creole Portuguese
Missão Antropológica de
Timor
negator
noun phrase
oblique
perfective
plural
possessive
proximate
past
Ptg Portuguese
Tet Tetun
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Transcription of Archival Materials
Appendix A
Letter of Tancredo Caldeira do Casal Ribeiro to Hugo Schuchardt
Dili, June 30 1882
Hugo Schuchardt Archiv (University of Graz), nr. 01553
---
Ex.Sr.
Dilly 30 de Junho
1882
Recebi a amavel carta de V. E., e longe de pedir indulgencia como V. E. diz,
era de meu stricto dever procurar dar o meu auxilio, ainda que insignicantis-
simo, para um estudo tão valioso, sendo de mais a mais um estrangeiro que a
elle se dedicava. Infelizmente o Sr. Meyrelles de Távora, conando e com boa
razão na minha boa vontade, enganou-se bastante quanto á minha capacidade
para estudos linguisticos, aos quaes nem de longe me dediquei. Tenho o curso
de agronomo e é nesse cargo que me acho em Timor e V. E. bem vê que ne-
nhuma paridade existe entre a sciencia agronomica e os estudos linguisticos.
Portanto limitar-me-hei a assentar os factos, e se alguma vez collocando-me
debaixo de um ponto de vista falso apresentar alguma reexão menos exacta
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V. E. a corrigirá. Como eu estou aqui há apenas um anno, não tendo portanto
a practica necessária, pedi a um dos missionarios que me coadjuvasse, e espero
poder enviar a V. E. alguma cousa do que deseja.
Em Timor não se formou nenhum dialecto especial, mas sim uma corrup-
ção do portuguez empregada em Dilly entre a pequena população indigena
que não sóbe a mais de 4:000 almas. No interior da ilha são raros os indige-
nas que falam o portuguez, a não ser os regulos e seus principaes (especie de
nobreza).
N’este portuguez corrupto que aqui chamam lingua da praça, não fazem
mais que dar ao portuguez a construcção da lingua indigena, usando dos
verbos ou no innito ou na terceira pessoa do singular do tempo presente,
acrescentando o adverbiojá para indicar o preterito, e ha de para o futuro.
Explo.
Eu já fala – Eu falei Eu já compra – Eu comprei
Eu ha de fala – Eu falarei Nós há de compra – Nos compraremos
Convem notar que raras vezes empregam o verbo dizer, substituindo-
o pelo verbo falar. Sobre o verbo dizer occorre-me outra singularidade,
e é que traduzem o nosso dizem, (que corresponde ao francez on dit), por gente
já fala.
O verbo estar é algumas vezes substituído pelo verbo ter, ex.:
Fulano tem em casa? – F. está em casa?
A particula a é empregada algumas vezes em vez de com, ex.:
Eu compra com F. – Eu compro a F.
Elles já compra com F. – Elles compraram a F.
Como se vê n’estes exemplos, o pronome varia, mas o verbo não é conju-
gado, o que exactamente acontece nas linguas indigenas.
Na maioria das locuções os artigos são supprimidos, e as regras de concor-
dancia não são respeitadas.
Há algumas palavras portuguezas que os Timores empregam na sua lingua,
porque não tem n’ellas expressão correspondente, e se pela lingua se pode
conhecer o caracter dos povos chegamos a conclusões engraçadas embora
verdadeiras.
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As phrases – é preciso – e – obrigado – não tem correspondente nas linguas
de Timor, e portanto tomaram as palavras portuguezas. Na realidade elles não
tem uma ideia nitida de necessidade e precisão, e quanto a sentimentos de
gratidão desconhecem-os completamente. Lembro-me agora de uma phrase,
na qual o não é substituído por nunca, e que fere desagradávelmente os ouvi-
dos portuguezes
Nunca sabe – Não sei
Eu nunca tem – Eu não tenho
O malaio não é a lingua de Timor, e é um facto curioso como em uma ilha
tãopequena se formaram mais de 25 linguas, das quaes se algumas não pas-
sam de dialectos, outras são perfeitamente dissemelhantes, e mesmo entre
asquese assemelham há variações notaveis. Eu vivo habitualmente no inte-
rior, e para leste de Dilly, e portanto tomo para exemplo as tres linguas que
se falam nas proximidades do local que habito, e que são o této, o uáimá e o
macassai.
Této Uáimá Macassai
Água – vé – uai – ira
Faca – turri – turri – suti
Fogo – áhi – dháhá – ata
Cavallo – cuda – cuda – cuda
Búfalo – carau – carabau – carabau
Convem notar que o h é bastante aspirado.
Com respeito ás canções que V. E. me pede não as posso enviar agora,
porque careço de tempo para as as collecionar. Incluso remmetto a V. E.
uma carta que me enviou o regulo de Laleia, desculpando-se de não ter vindo
encontrar-se commigo em Dilly, e prommettendo vir.
Desculpe-me V. E. estas reexões ao correr da penna, porque a mala está a
partir, e nós aqui só uma vez por mez é que temos vapor.
Dentro em poucos dias parto para fazer a exploração completa da ilha, o
que levará 5 a 6 mezes, e depois disso é que poderei colher alguns dados uteis
para V. E., pedindo desde já que não extranhe a demora em mandar os esclare-
cimentos que deseja. Sou com a maior consideração
De V. E.
Att° ven e creado obg
Tancredo C. do Casal Ribeiro
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P. S. Desculpe V. E. as raspaduras porque não tenho tempo de copiar a limpo
esta carta.
Appendix B
Letter of José dos Santos Vaquinhas to Hugo Schuchardt
Macau, November 3 1884 (?)
Hugo Schuchardt Archiv (University of Graz), nr. B0022
---
Illmo e Exmo Snr. Dr. Hugo Schuchardt
Professor na Universidade de Graz
Austria
Exmo. Snr.
Recebi a carta de V Ex. datada de 24 de Maio do corrente anno, e permitta-me
V Ex. que antes de tudo eu aprezente algumas considerações que o contheudo
da sua carta me suggeriu.
Diz-me V Ex. que o fallecido D. Burnell lhe asseverou que em Batavia se fallava o
portuguez corrupto. O D. Burnell tem razão e creia V Ex. que elle não se enganou;
eu mesmo ouvi fallar em Batavia o portuguez corrupto e é por isso que assim o as-
severei tambem nas minhas cartas, dirigidas á Sociedade de Geographia de Lis-
boa, citadas por V Ex. para conrmar a opinião do D. Burnell que investigou
tudo com aquella minuciosidade de um verdadeiro inglez – e as pessoas que
negam que em Batavia se falla o portuguez por aquella fórma, desconhecem por
certo a língua portugueza e sobre tudo o que seja o portuguez corrupto; pois de
contrario não posso explicar como haja quem negue a existencia de um tal facto.
Eu tambem posso assegurar a V Ex. que n’alguns pontos da ilha Flores e
n’outras proximas se falla ainda o mesmo portuguez corrupto, o que tive
42
43
Also published online at http://schuchardt.uni-graz.at/korrespondenz/briefe/korrespon
denzpartner/1352/briefe/B0022/ (accessed August 14, 2016).
Here, Vaquinhas is referring to his letters published in 1883 in the Boletim da Sociedade de
Geographia de Lisboa (see Vaquinhas, 1883), in one of which he reports on the portuguez
[…] estropiado ‘broken Portuguese’ spoken in Batavia.
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occasião de observar durante 16 annos que vivi na Oceania, onde aprendi a fal-
lar alguns dialectos d’aquelles insulares e z muitas viagens por aquellas ilhas.
O viajante ou curioso ainda que tenha muita vontade de investigar e de
averiguar a verdade com relação aos povos da Oceania que são muito descon-
ados não o póde fazer sem se internarem no interior das ilhas para obterem
informações exactas e positivas e é isto justamente que poucos viajantes prati-
cam. Se o viajante não entender algum dialecto ou deixar de ter bom interprete
e não visitar o interior das ilhas como já disse, obterão sempre informações
erradas e inexactas do primeiro pantomineiro ou cicerone que se faz compre-
hender ao viajante para lhe apanhar algumas moedas de prata – Das más infor-
mações resulta que muitas pessoas negam a existência do que não investigam
ou não entenderam e ainda mais atrevem-se depois a pôr em duvida o teste-
munho occular de quem as investigou elmente.
Eu devo voltar para Timor em maio ou junho de 1885 e logo que ali chegue envi-
arei os esclarecimentos que puder obter e que me são pedidos por V Ex.ª com re-
lação aos dialectos de Timor e da língua creoula fallada na praça de Dilly-Timor.
Letter of José dos Santos Vaquinhas to Hugo Schuchardt
Dili, November 30 1885
Hugo Schuchardt Archiv (University of Graz), nr. 02615
---
Timor, Dilly 30 de Nov de 1885
Ex. Snr. D Hugo Schuchardt
Graz
Estimado Snr.
Recebi as cartas de V.ª Ex.ª sendo a ultima de 5 de Setembro do presente anno
e por motivo de doença não me foi possivel responder logo.
O Snr. padre Gomes escreveu a V.ª Ex.ª por esta mala, satisfasendo um porte
ao seu pedido.
44
Transcribed from the original manuscript by Silvio Moreira de Sousa, also published on-
line at http://schuchardt.uni-graz.at/korrespondenz/briefe/korrespondenzpartner/1352/
briefe/02-2615/ (accessed August 14, 2016). With slight stylistic changes by the authors.
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Eu envio incluso uns apontamentos do portuguez crioulo fallado em Dilly;
oportuguez [sic] corrompido que se falla em Larantuka (Flores) é o mesmo
que se falla em Dilly.
Eide estimar m. que esses apontamentos possão servir para o m q V.ª Ex.ª
tem em vista.
Sou de Vª Exª
Com a maxima consideração seu afeiçoado e admirado amigo
José dos Santos Vaquinhas
Letter of José dos Santos Vaquinhas to Hugo Schuchardt
Macau, July 14 1886
Hugo Schuchardt Archiv (University of Graz), nr. 02616
---
Macao 14 de julho de 1886
Ex. Snr. D. Hugo Schuchardt
Graz
Ex. Snr.
Ha poucos dias recebi a carta de V.ª Ex.ª de 26 de janeiro do presente anno a qual
passo a responder sem satisfação ao seu pedido. Pergunta V.ª Ex.ª o que signica:
1 Pidi bença, da bença, signica: Peça benção e dê benção. É um comprimento
uzado entre os timorenses e ignoro se isso imitado do malaio. 2 Manda bem da
recados, signica que: mandou [ou mandou-me] vir e dar recados ou lembranças.
3 Manda bem pidi bença, isto é que: mandou que viesse pedir a benção. 4 Crian-
ça iloutro, – quer dizer: as crianças, ou aquella outra criança, ou aquellas criancas
[sic]. 5 Pidi bença, dá bença na criança iloutro. – quer dizer: Peça (ou peço) ben-
ção e dê (ou dou) benção ás criancas. Criança iloutro pidi bença (ou dá bença)
na Nona, – signica que as crianças pedem benção a Senhora, – aquem é dirigido
o comprimento. 6 Nai iloutro bai falla quer dizer: aquelle (ou aquelles) Senhor
(ou Senhores) vae (ou vão) fallar, ou alias aquelle disse ou aqueles desiam. 7
No baixo de carteira, – isto signica: De baixo da carteira. Carteira é a mesa
45
Transcribed from the original manuscript by Silvio Moreira de Sousa, also published on-
line at http://schuchardt.uni-graz.at/korrespondenz/briefe/korrespondenzpartner/1352/
briefe/03-2616/ (accessed August 14, 2016). With slight stylistic changes by the authors.
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journal of language contact (2017) 1-54
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ou secretaria sobre a qual se escreve. 8 Cebolla já contente, – signica a
referencia que se faz a cebolla quando murcha por efeito do calor do Sol e recu-
pera o vigor com a chuva da trovoada. 9 Anda tudo terra Dilly mais cidade, – que
dizer: anda por toda a (parte) terra e mais (ou ate) na cidade de Dilly. Dilly é a
cidade.
Muitos lhos dos regulos e principaes de Larantuka foram educados nas esco-
las portuguezas em Okusse (Lifaú) e da hi veem elles fallar o portuguez criolo
em Larantuka. Actualmente estão estudando com os missionarios portugue-
zes na escola de Lahane (em Dilly) alguns rapazes de Larantuka; não perdem
estes nunca o ensejo de aprender oportuguez [sic] de que com o andar dos
annos se esquecem e dá hi vem o fallarem o portuguez corrupto ou portuguez
criolo. De Timor enviei a Vª Exª um cathecismo de doutrina christa, escripto
no dialecto tetu ou tetum que se falla em Dilly e que foi escripto por um mis-
sionario portuguez. Em o mez de agosto proximo vou para Lisboa com licença
por um anno onde ofereco o meu limitado prestimo a Vª Exª.
Subscrevo-me de V.ª Exª
Att Vend Obrigado
José dos Santos Vaquinhas
Appendix C
Letter of Rafael das Dores to José Leite de Vasconcelos
Cascais, February 23 1901
Epistolário de José Leite de Vasconcelos (Museu Nacional de Arqueologia,
Lisbon), nr. 7026
---
Cascais 23 2/901
Meu Ex. Am. e Sr.
Respondo immediatamente à sua apreciável cartinha.
Vae V. Ex.ª car admirado com o que vou dizer-lhe, mas por mais estranho
que pareça é a verdade.
Em Timor os indígenas que fallam portuguez, fallam-o exactamente como
nós, não havendo patuá, como em Macau e nas outras colónias.
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No litural da ilha falla-se em geral a língua malaia, no commercio, e as lín-
guas indígenas tétum, e galolo; no interior fallam-se estas duas ultimas que eu
julgo modicações do Malaio, e uma infenidade de dialectos, mas todos com
as características d’esta.
Eu tenho em apontamentos os materiaes para coordenar um vocabulário da
língua tétum, mas não me sinto com disposição nem com saúde, nem mesmo
tenho competencia para elle.
Em vista do que expus atrás já V. Ex.ª vê que sobre Timor, nada lhe posso
proporcionar com relação à língua portugueza alli fallada; quanto porèm a Ma-
cau, estou prompto a verter-lhe no patuá, os textos que me indicar, assim como
na língua portugueza fallada pelos chinas que é coisa perfeitamente distinta
da língua de Macau como creio que V. Ex.ª já sabe.
Fico pois esperando as suas ordens, que serão executadas até onde as
minhas debeis forças o permittam, e sou com toda a consideração
De V Exª
Raphael das Dores
Letter of Rafael das Dores to José Leite de Vasconcelos
Cascais, March 13 1901
Epistolário de José Leite de Vasconcelos (Museu Nacional de Arqueologia,
Lisbon), nr. 7027
---
Cascais 13 Março 1901
Ex. Am. e Sr.
Respondo à cartinha de V. Ex.ª enviando-lhe a parábola que pede, e para a
qual peço toda a sua attenção e indulgencia. Não estará perfeita, mas parece-
me que será aproximada.
Quanto ao que me diz sobre o crioulo em Timor, conheço e possuo o livro
d’Afonso de Castro. Este na curta demora que teve em Timor e sem sahir de
Lahane, não teve tempo d’estudar practicamente tudo que tratou no seu livro,
que mais parece coordenado d’escritos anteriores.
Diz elle que as línguas indígenas são ásperas, e nada parecidas com a malaia,
o que me parece uma acção[?] gratuita de quem não conhece uma nem outras.
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Eu estive 4 vezes em Timor, e pela 1ª vez demorei-me perto de 3 annos, e
percorrendo o litoral, e a maior parte do interior, não encontrei o tal crioulo de
que elle falla, nem as asperezas das línguas ou dialectos.
Conheço a língua malaia practicam. e aprendi o que poude da língua teto,
e vejo por exemplo, que a palavra «lima» que signica 5 ou mão, é commum
em ambas as línguas; não será isto uma aproximação?
De facto algumas raparigas vindas do interior para creadas, e servindo em
casa de pessoas de Macau residentes em Timor, aprendem palavras de crioulo
macaísta, mas tanto estas raparigas como as próprias pessoas de Macau, com
o tempo chegam a fallar o portuguez como nós, o que eu observei, e mesmo se
nota em Macau, nas senhoras que regressam de Timor.
A phrase que V. Ex.ª foi encontrar na Áustria é muito minha conhecida; e é
usada exactamente nas condições q- venho d’expor, mas já está modicada:
ahi usa-se lá «Nai… fó meado, fó bom dia, fó boa noite etc».
A palavra Nai em teto, corresponde a Senhor em portuguez; assim diz-se
«Nai Buhot» Sr. Governador, «Nai Lulic» Sr. Padre.
A palavra fó em teto, corresponde ao verbo dar em portuguez, e é a unica
forma conhecida do verbo.
Todas as outras palavras são portuguezas e pronunciadas claramente, ou
macaístas e pronunciadas com o acento proprio.
Em vista do exposto, apesar da minha manifesta incompetencia em philolo-
gia, continuo com a convicção de que não existe em Timor um crioulo proprio.
Desculpe-me estes dizeres, conte com o dialogo, logo que eu o possa engen-
drar, e disponha do que é com toda a consideração
De V Exª
Raphael das Dores
Appendix D
Letter of Alberto Osório de Castro to José Leite de Vasconcelos
Dili, August 3 1910
Epistolário de José Leite de Vasconcelos (Museu Nacional de Arqueologia,
Lisbon), nr. 4215
---
Timor – Dilli, Agosto 3, 1910
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Meu querido Mestre eEx Primo
Teria V Ex recebido o meu livro Flores de Coral? Foi um dos primeiros
exemplares que remetti. Lá encontra uma parte sobre linguas timoresas, e
sobre um dialecto crioulo que ninguém ainda descobrira, creio, o português
de Bidau. Estou publicando aqui ocialmente um carnis[?] – Plantas uteis
de Timor – Lá metterei o que puder de ethnographia, mas verdadeiramente
é á ethnographia que virei a xar toda a attenção. Estou em relações[?]
seguidas com Arndt van Gennep. Viu na revista ethnographica allemã
Globus uma noticia sobre o meu livro? Dê-me os seus conselhos, as
suas indicações de methodo. Sabe que z aqui um questionario sobre usos
e costumes, e estão publicadas cento e tantas paginas das respostas?
Mas [??] agora tudo! Se podesse [??] isto com a sua palavra! De todo o co-
ração […]
Alberto Osório de Castro
Letter of Alberto Osório de Castro to José Leite de Vasconcelos
undated
Epistolário de José Leite de Vasconcelos (Museu Nacional de Arqueologia,
Lisbon), nr. 24255
---
Ex e querido Primo e Mestre
Ainda não tive um dia livre e a saude para ir a Campolide agradecer-lhe todas
as suas bondades, e apresentar-lhes os meus respeitos e à Ex Prima. Encon-
trei enm o texto português crioulo de Bidau (bairro de Díli). É dito pelas as-
sistentes do parto à parturiente. Ei-lo: – Fija, pàciencia, aguenta. Nósse guéra
ant’èstè. Homem à L’outro pega na arma, vai peleja, mata um com outro. Pèga
zagaia, nca um com outro, pega tàmên pedra, pontaum com outro. Nósse
guéra ant’èstè!
Ouvi isto em Singapura:
– Então, Lóia, pàpiá um pouco? Porque nunca pàpiá? Papiá é conversar,
falar.
Creio que fui eu quem primeiro falou no português de Bidau, certamente o
crioulo da destruida Lifau, e de Larantuca, na ilha de Flores.
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Em Java ouvi uma palavra portuguesa não indicada ainda: tutrúgu, a
casca ou carapaça da tartaruga que se exporta. Em Ternate chama-se à noz
moscada – Nócha que deve vir de noz. De todos nós para V. V. Ex apertados
cumprimentos.
Primo e discipulo e mt. admirador e dedicado
Alberto Osório de Castro
