Hugo Schuchardt Archiv

Canela Villa
Turret Road
Colombo
24 Jan 1890

My dear Sir,

Forgive me for not having replied to your letters of 15 Nov 1888 and 1889; but the pressure of work prevented. I have been trying to get the information you want, and now enclose a letter I have just received from Mr Eaton which I hope will be of use to you. I shall apply to other persons to try and get |2|the words of the Caffrinha. “Pokiri Janby’s wedding” has not been published, and I do not think it will contain any Portuguese. If any recent works have been published I shall send you them. In one of the late Dr Burnett’s books that I bought I found a short note by him on Ceylon Portuguese, a copy of which I send you on the opposite page. I shall look with interest for your essay on Ceylon Portuguese. Thanks for the paper you have sent me.

Yours very truly

Donald Ferguson

From Dr Burnett’s book:

Based on Portuguese of c. 1500 – 1520

Genders all lost. Sua povo (Ina 1, 21)

Sua nome (Ina I, 23) Sua filho (Ina I, 23)

Sua filhos (Ina II, 18) Sua olhos (Act IX 8)

Article o for singular and plural of all genders.

O dias (Ina ii,1) o rey (Ina, ii, 2) Humvoz tinha ouvido (Ina, ii.18)

Genitive expressed by de which does not join with the article.

Conforme de o tempo (Ina, ii, 16) depois de o morte (Ina, ii, 19)

Verb substantive Pres. tem Past tinha Subj. seja (Res, xxii, 21)

Present tense by te

te falla, te faze, te vi (Res xxii, 19, 20)

Past by ja

ja falla (Gen. ii.1) ja olha (do: 6)

Inf

to = per – per testificaper vosotros (Rev.xxii.16)

Future rarely a corrupt form (murre = will die) is preserved; usually it is formed by lo ser with part.

Pronouns: Eu/mi/nos nossotros. minha, nossos

Tu/ti/vossotros tua (John xvii, 6, 26) vossa sua (J.xviii,1)

Este Esta Elle ellotros

Obj lo, la f. Ella ellas (John xvii, 10)

Obj los suas (J.xvii, 20)

Articles Hum

o

Pl. o (com o discipulos Acts ix, 19)

Plurals by –s or unchanged

According to Bernier I, 94 – “the Portuguese families residing in the kingdom of Bengal, whether half-caste or European, amount to 8 or 9,000 at the lowest computation” b. 192-4

Ziegenbaby’s remarks in his Ref to his “Grammar Damulioa”

V Feryer’s “History of Lutheran missions in S. India” Graul Prabhu in Canara

I, 138

The great difference between the Indo-Portuguese and the similar W. Indian dialects consist in this: that, all in I.P. is written with the old spellings, but in the W. Indies in Surinam the English spelling is used for Dutch, and in Curaçao the Dutch spelling for Spanish, e.g. Ki for que.

Portuguese became the lingua franca where numerous and difficult dialects prevail, e.g. in the south, and on the N. Coast of Ceylon.