Cover not available
Article published In:
Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages
Vol. 31:1 (2016) ► pp.141–183

An outline of Macau Pidgin Portuguese

| University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

In the early stages of the China trade European traders knew nothing of Chinese, while the Chinese traders were equally ignorant of European languages. It was in this setting that pidgin languages developed for interethnic communication. While the role of Chinese Pidgin English in the China trade is fairly well-understood (see Baker 1987; Baker & Mühlhäusler 1990; Bolton 2003; Ansaldo 2009), the use of pidgin Portuguese is poorly documented and our understanding of it is correspondingly limited (Tryon, Mühlhäusler & Baker 1996). In this article we discuss what can be learnt from a newly transcribed phrasebook — the Compendium of Assorted Phrases in Macau Pidgin. We first review the use of contact varieties of Portuguese in the China trade. We then introduce the contents and layout of the Compendium and explain the transcription practices adopted for the phrasebook. Grammatical features contained in the phrasebook are examined and illustrated. We conclude with an examination of the significance of the Compendium in enriching our understanding of pidgin Portuguese and its relationship with Macau Creole Portuguese as well as Chinese Pidgin English.

Keywords: Chinese Pidgin English, Macau Pidgin Portuguese, phrasebooks, China trade, Macau Creole Portuguese
Published online: 10 May 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jpcl.31.1.06li
References
Anonymous
n.d.) 澳門畨語雜字全本 Ou3 mun2 faan1 jyu5 zaap6 zi6 cyun4 bun2, translated as Compendium of assorted phrases in Macau Pidgin. Canton: Wu Gui Tang (五桂堂藏板).
Ansaldo, Umberto
2009 Contact languages: Ecology and evolution in Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Anson, George
1748 A voyage round the world, in the years MDCCXL, I, II, III, IV by George Anson, Compiled from papers and other materials of the Right Honourable George Lord Anson, and published under his Direction (3rd edition). By Richard Walter. London: printed for John and Paul Knapton.Google Scholar
Arana-Ward, Marie
1977 A synchronic and diachronic investigation of Macanese: The Portuguese based creole of Macao. Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong MA thesis.Google Scholar
Azevedo, Milton M
2005 Portuguese: A linguistic introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Baker, Philip & Peter Mühlhäusler
1990 From business to pidgin. Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 1(1). 87–115.Google Scholar
Batalha, Graciete Nogueira
1988 Glossário do dialect macaense – Notas linguisticas, etnográficas e folclóricas. Macao: Instituto Cultural de Macao.Google Scholar
Bawden, Charles R
1954 An eighteenth century Chinese source for the Portuguese dialect of Macao. In Kyōto Daigaku. Jinbun Kagaku Kenkyūjo (eds.), Silver jubilee volume of Zinbun-Kagaku-Kenkyusyo, 12–33. Kyoto: Kyoto University.Google Scholar
Baxter, Alan N
1988 A grammar of Kristang (Malacca Creole Portuguese). Canberra: Pacific Linguistics,Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University.Google Scholar
2009 O português em Macau: Contacto e assimilação. In Ana M. Carvalho (ed.), Português em contato, 277–312. Frankfurt am Main: Vervuert.Google Scholar
Baxter, Alan & Augusta Bastos
2012 A closer look at the post-nominal genitive in Asian Creole Portuguese. In Hugo C. Cardoso, Alan N. Baxter & Mário Pinharanda Nunes (eds.), Ibero-Asian creoles: Comparative Perspectives, 47–80. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Benyowsky, Mauritius Augustus Count de
1790 Memoirs and travels of Mauritius Augustus Count de Benyowsky. London: G.G.J. Robinson, Pater-Bister-Row.Google Scholar
Bolton, Kingsley
2003 Chinese Englishes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Chan, Marjorie K.M
1994 Post-stopped nasals and lateral flaps in the Zhongshan (Yue) dialect: A study of a mid-eighteenth century Sino-Portuguese glossary. In Dan-an Ho & Chiu-yu Tseng (eds.), Proceedings of the fourth international symposium on Chinese languages and linguistics 21, 203–250. Taipei: Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica.Google Scholar
Cabreros, Peter
2003 Macao Patois words in English. Review of Culture 51., 126–151.Google Scholar
Clements, J. Clancy
2009 The linguistic legacy of Spanish and Portuguese. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fernandes, Miguel Senna & Alan Norman Baxter
2004 Maquista chapado: Vocabulary and expressions in Macao’s Portuguese Creole. Macau: Instituto Cultural do Governo da Região Especial Administrativa de Macau.Google Scholar
Ferraz, Luiz Ivens
1987 Portuguese creoles of West Africa and Asia. In Glenn G. Gilbert (ed.), Pidgin and creole languages: Essays in memory of John E. Reinecke, 337–360. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.Google Scholar
Hall, Robert A
1944 Chinese Pidgin English grammar and texts. Journal of the American Oriental Society 641., 95–113. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin & The APiCS Consortium
2013 Polar questions. In Susanne M. Michaelis, Philippe Maurer, Martin Haspelmath ,Magnus Huber & (eds.), The Atlas of pidgin and creole structures, 410–413. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Holm, John
1989 Pidgins and creoles,. vol. II1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hunter, William
1882 The ‘fan kwae’ at Canton before Treaty Days, 1825-1844. London:K. Paul, Trench & co.Google Scholar
Li, Michelle
2011 Chinese Pidgin English and the origins of pidgin grammar. Hong Kong: University of Hong Kong PhD dissertation. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Li, Michelle, Stephen Matthews & Geoff P. Smith
2005 Pidgin English texts from the Chinese and English instructor. Special issue of the Hong Kong Journal of Applied Linguistics 10(1)., 79–167.Google Scholar
Luo, W
1996 ‘Wooden fish’, Nanyin, Wu Gui Tang (木魚 南音 五桂堂). Guangdong Shi Zhi (廣東史志) 31., 46–49.Google Scholar
Matthews, Stephen & Michelle Li
2012 Portuguese pidgin and Chinese Pidgin English in the Canton trade. In Hugo C. Cardoso, Alan N. Baxter & Mário Pinharanda Nunes (eds.), Ibero-Asian creoles: Comparative Perspectives, 263–287. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Maurer, Philippe
2011 The former Portuguese Creole of Batavia and Tugu. London/Colombo: Battlebridge Publications.Google Scholar
Maurer, Philippe & The APiCS Consortium
2013 Uses of the progressive marker. In Susanne M. Michaelis, Philippe Maurer, Martin Haspelmath, & Magnus Huber (eds.), The Atlas of pidgin & creole language structures, 184–185. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Maurer, Philippe, Susanne M. Michaelis & The APiCS Consortium
2013 Directional serial verb constructions with ‘come’ and ‘go’. In Susanne M. Michaelis, Philippe Maurer, Martin Haspelmath,Magnus Huber & (eds.), The Atlas of pidgin & creole language structures, 334–335. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Noble, Charles F
1762 A voyage to the East Indies in 1747 and 1748. London: T. Becket and P.A. Dehondt.Google Scholar
Osbeck, Peter
1771 A Voyage to China and the East Indies; together with a voyage to Suratte ; by Olof Toreen and an account of the Chinese husbandry; by Charles Gustavus Eckeberg. London: Printed for Benjamin White.Google Scholar
Schuchardt, Hugo
1890 Kreolische Studien IX. Ueber das Malaioportugiesische von Batavia und Tugu. Sitzungsberichte der philosophisch-historischen Classe der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Wien 1221: 1–256.Google Scholar
Smith, Geoff P
2008 Chinese Pidgin English pronouns revisited. Hong Kong Journal of Applied Linguistics 11(1)., 65–78.Google Scholar
Snow, Don
2004 Cantonese as written language: The growth of a written Chinese vernacular. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.Google Scholar
Thompson, Robert Wallace
1959 Two synchronic cross-sections in the Portuguese dialect of Macao. Orbis 81.: 29–53Google Scholar
Tong, Ting-kü
(唐廷樞) 1862 The Chinese and English instructor (英語集全). Canton.Google Scholar
Tryon, Darrell T., Peter Mühlhäusler, & Philip Baker
1996 English-derived contact languages in the Pacific in the 19th century (excluding Australia). In Stephen A. Wurm, Peter Mühlhäusler & Darrell T. Tryon (eds.), Atlas of languages of intercultural communication in the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas, vol. II.1, 471–495. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Van Dyke, Paul A
2005 The Canton trade: Life and enterprise on the Chinese coast, 1700–1845. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.Google Scholar
Williams, Samuel Wells
1836 Jargon spoken at Canton: How it originated and has grown into use; Mode in which the Chinese learn English; Eexamples of the language in common use between foreigners and Chinese. Chinese Repository 41., 428–435.Google Scholar
1837 Gaoumun fan yu tsa tsze tsuen taou, or A complete collection of the miscellaneous words used in the foreign language of Macao. 2. Hungmaou mae mae tung yung kwei hwa, or those words of the devilish language of the red-bristled people commonly used in buying and selling. Chinese Repository 61., 276–279.Google Scholar
Wu, Yixiong
(吳義雄) 2001 Pidgin English and Sino-Western intercourse before the mid-19th century. (“廣東英語” 與19世紀中葉以前的中西交往). Modern Chinese History Studies (近代史研究) 31. 172–202.Google Scholar
Zhou, Zhenhe
(周振鶴) 2008 Yi yan shu yu (逸言殊語). Shanghai: Shanghai ren min chu ban she (上海:上海人民出版社).Google Scholar
(周振鶴) 2011 A preliminary analysis of Wu Gui Tang’s Compendium of assorted phrases in Macao Pidgin and a comparison with Aomen Jilue (對五桂堂印本<澳門番語雜字全本>的初步分析 – 兼及與<澳譯> 的比較). In Propaganda Bureau of Municipal Party Committee of Zhuhai (珠海市委宣傳部), Fundação Macau & Central China Normal University, (eds.), Wei Zhuomin and Cultural Exchanges between China and the West, 193–209. Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 10 other publications

Arcodia, Giorgio Francesco
2017. On Sinitic influence on Macanese. Language Ecology 1:2 ► pp. 158 ff. DOI logo
Arcodia, Giorgio Francesco
2022. Macanese Negation in Comparative Perspective: Typology and Ecology. Journal of Language Contact 14:3 ► pp. 557 ff. DOI logo
Cardoso, Hugo C.
2020. Contact and Portuguese‐Lexified Creoles. In The Handbook of Language Contact, ► pp. 469 ff. DOI logo
Jacobs, Bart & Mikael Parkvall
2020. Chavacano (Philippine Creole Spanish). Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 35:1 ► pp. 88 ff. DOI logo
Jacobs, Bart & Mikael Parkvall
2021. How ‘Portuguese’ are Palenquero and Chabacano really?. Revue Romane. Langue et littérature. International Journal of Romance Languages and Literatures 56:2 ► pp. 235 ff. DOI logo
Li, Michelle
2016. Trade Pidgins in China: Historical and Grammatical Relationships. Transactions of the Philological Society 114:3 ► pp. 298 ff. DOI logo
Li, Michelle
2024. Chapter 12. Adult L2 acquisition of for- complementation in Chinese Pidgin English and Hong Kong English. In Lifespan Acquisition and Language Change [Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics, 14], ► pp. 294 ff. DOI logo
Parkvall, Mikael & Bart Jacobs
2020. Palenquero origins. Diachronica 37:4 ► pp. 540 ff. DOI logo
Roberge, Paul T.
2020. Germanic Contact Languages. In The Cambridge Handbook of Germanic Linguistics, ► pp. 833 ff. DOI logo
Tobar Delgado, Eduardo
2022. Chabacano and Luso-Asian creoles. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 37:2 ► pp. 321 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 2 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.