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Cristão (or Papiá Kristang or simply papia) is a Creole language based in Portuguese in a Malay grammatical structure spoken in Malacca, Malaysia and in Singapore. It is also spoken by some immigrants and their descendants in Malaysia's and Singapore's former metropoli, United Kingdom, where some settled after independence. Also Australia, in particular the city of Perth, is a popular destination for retirees in the community.
As the Portuguese are devout Catholics, Papia Cristao - the name of the language and culture - means both "Papist Christian" as well as "to talk christian". Other synonyms for the Portuguese community are "Serani" (short for Malay "nasrani") - meaning followers of Jesus the Nazarene; and "Gragok" (slang term for Malau "Geragau" or shrimp) - as the Malaccan Portuguese were traditionally fishermen who fished shrimp.
One common misconception is that the Portuguese first arrived in Malacca in 1511. In fact, an expeditionary party first landed in 1507. It is recorded in the "Sejarah Melayu" that they were mistaken to be "Bengali Puteh" (White Bengalis). The story goes the landing party insulted the Malaccan sultan by placing a garland of flowers over his head, and had them detained. The second wave came in 1511 in an armada of ships from India to free the landing party. Currently, the Malaccan Portuguese enjoy the status of being "semi-bumiputra" - which means they are half-natives, one step lower than the indgenous Malays.
Another misconception is that the all Portuguese in Singapore came from Malacca. Not quite, as some came from the former Portugues Goa.
Papia Kristang is a Portuguese creole among many Portuguese creole that exist in Portuguese satellite communities worldwide (including Timor Leste, Goa, Sri Lanka, Macau, and Angola). Although vernacular Kristang is based on Malay grammar and has many Malay words in it, it could be easily understood by speakers of Cape Verdean Kriolu. As there were no proper schools, kristang was passed down orally and attempts at a kristang orthography began only in the 1990's with Joan Marbeck's book "Ungua Andanza" (available in Malacca).
Features of Kristang (or "Cristao")
One feature of the kristang language is the inverted "r". For example, the Portuguese word "Gordo" (meaning "fat") is pronounced "Godro" in kristang.
The digraph "ch" is pronounced as in "cheese", to accomodate and be inline with a host of malay words that begin with "ch". Thus the soft "ch" in "chegar" and "chuva" is prounounced "chegak" and "chu" in a malay way. Many Portuguese words have been simplified in kristang to avoid confusion and to accomodate a peranakan/malay speaking environment in old Melaka. Thus "Padrinho" and "Madrinha" (Godfather and Godmother) in Portuguese is simplified to "inyu" and "inya" in kristang.
Another feature is the word "ja" (i.e. already) to indicate all past tenses, and "ta"(from 'esta', which means "is") to indicate all present continuous tenses and "logu" to indicate future tense.
A peculiarity of the language is the pronoun "Yo" (meaning "I") which is used in Spanish and Sicilian.
The leading expert in this field is Monsignior Manuel Texeira (also known respectfully as the "Old Man of Macau"), who has written some volumes on the subject.
See also
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