Macanese Portuguese
Encyclopedia
Macanese Portuguese or Patuá (Português Macaense) is a Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...

 dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...

 spoken in Macau
Macau
Macau , also spelled Macao , is, along with Hong Kong, one of the two special administrative regions of the People's Republic of China...

. It is co-official
Official language
An official language is a language that is given a special legal status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically a nation's official language will be the one used in that nation's courts, parliament and administration. However, official status can also be used to give a...

 with Cantonese. It is only spoken by 7% of the residents; less than 2% speak it as first language. It is distinct from the Macanese language
Macanese language
Macanese or Macau Creole is a creole language derived mainly from Malay, Sinhalese, Cantonese, and Portuguese, which was originally spoken by the Macanese community of the Portuguese colony of Macau...

, a Portuguese Creole
Portuguese Creole
Portuguese creoles are creole languages which have been significantly influenced by Portuguese.- Origins :Portuguese overseas exploration in the 15th and 16th century's led to the establishment of a Portuguese Empire with trading posts, forts and colonies in the Americas, Asia and Africa...

 in Macau.

History

Macau had its first contact with the Portuguese language in 1557 when it was established as a trade center of Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

 to other parts of Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

, but it largely entered Macau in the 19th century when China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 ceded Macau to Portugal and Macau was declared a formal Portuguese province
Portuguese Empire
The Portuguese Empire , also known as the Portuguese Overseas Empire or the Portuguese Colonial Empire , was the first global empire in history...

 and it was made an official language, along with Cantonese. Currently, there is only one school in Macau where Portuguese is the medium of instruction.

Portugal returned Macau to China in 1999 but Portuguese remained an official language. There has been an increase in the teaching of Portuguese owing to the growing trade links between China and lusophone
Lusophone
A Lusophone is someone who speaks the Portuguese language, either as a native, as an additional language, or as a learner. As an adjective, it means "Portuguese-speaking"...

 nations such as Portugal, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

, Angola
Angola
Angola, officially the Republic of Angola , is a country in south-central Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean with Luanda as its capital city...

, Mozambique
Mozambique
Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...

, and East Timor
East Timor
The Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, commonly known as East Timor , is a state in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the nearby islands of Atauro and Jaco, and Oecusse, an exclave on the northwestern side of the island, within Indonesian West Timor...

, with 5000 students learning the language.

Phonology

The Macanese dialect is traditionally an Old Portuguese variety, in some aspects similar to Brazilian Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese is a group of Portuguese dialects written and spoken by most of the 190 million inhabitants of Brazil and by a few million Brazilian emigrants, mainly in the United States, United Kingdom, Portugal, Canada, Japan and Paraguay....

 in pronunciation. For example, the word pôde is pronounced [ˈpodʒi] in most part of Brazil but [ˈpodɨ] in Standard European Portuguese
European Portuguese
European Portuguese refers to the variety of Portuguese spoken in continental Portugal, as well as the Azores and Madeira islands...

. The only Portuguese-medium school teaches Standard European Portuguese, as with most of the CPLP. There are still some phonological differences affected by Cantonese phonology made by those who speak Portuguese as a second language, such as a non-rhotic accent
Rhotic and non-rhotic accents
English pronunciation can be divided into two main accent groups: a rhotic speaker pronounces a rhotic consonant in words like hard; a non-rhotic speaker does not...

: final /r/ is dropped, as in African Portuguese
African Portuguese
Portuguese is spoken in five African states: Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe, Angola, and Mozambique. Like English and French, Portuguese has become a post-colonial language in Africa and one of the working languages of the African Union and the Southern African Development Community...

 and most Brazilian dialects and [ʒ] is devoiced to [ʃ]. These phonological differences do not apply to Chinese who have higher education in Portuguese.

Grammar

Macanese grammar was also Old Portuguese similar to Brazilian Portuguese, but it now follows the European grammar.

Lexicon

Vocabulary is the same as in Portugal and Brazil, but there are some differences due to Cantonese influence. These include tim sam, dim sum
Dim sum
Dim sum refers to a style of Chinese food prepared as small bite-sized or individual portions of food traditionally served in small steamer baskets or on small plates...

; "goh lor", goh low and ; "shu tiu", si tiu. It reached to countries and regions where Portuguese is spoken, especially Portugal where it was brought by Portuguese returnees and some Chinese and Macanese (who are loyal to them) who brought Chinese and Macanese culture. Vocabulary even went to Brazil through leaving Portuguese settlers with some Macanese and Chinese settlers.

External links


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