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The diffusion of the Portuguese around the globe which resulted from the expansionist dynamics inaugurated in the 15th century brought about multiple instances of language contact in many parts of Africa, the Americas, Asia, and the Pacific. In some locations, the outcome was the development of creole languages. Those that formed in South Asia became collectively known as “Indo-Portuguese”, reflecting the notion that they constitute a well-defined cluster within the universe of Portuguese-lexified creoles in Asia and elsewhere. Much more numerous and widespread in the past, these languages are currently spoken in only a few locations of India and Sri Lanka. In this lecture, we will explore the history of the linguistic documentation and description of the Indo-Portuguese creoles in general, but focusing on recent documentation projects dedicated to those of Diu, the Malabar coast (Cochin, Cannanore, Calicut), and (Eastern) Sri Lanka.

This event is in collaboration with the Camões Centre and the King's India Institute.

Hugo C. Cardoso holds degrees from the universities of Coimbra and Amsterdam and is currently Assistant Professor at the University of Lisbon. His research focuses on language contact involving Portuguese, having worked on Saramaccan, a creole of Suriname, but especially on the Portuguese-based creoles of South Asia – those of India (in particular, Diu and the Malabar Coast) and Sri Lanka –, endangered languages which he has documented extensively. His work combines a synchronic descriptive perspective with an interest in the history of these languages and in comparative approaches.

There will be a response from Professor Ananya Kabir.

Ananya Jahanara Kabir is Professor of English Literature at King’s College London. She researches the intersection of the written text with other forms of cultural expression within acts of collective memorialization and forgetting. Her new research projects explore further the concepts of transoceanic creolization through cultural production across the Atlantic and Indian Ocean worlds