The sounds of Malacca Portuguese Creole, Stefanie Pillai (Malaya), SOAS University of London
Channel: SOAS University of London
Date: 2017-04-05

https://www.soas.ac.uk/linguistics/
This seminar titled "The sounds of Malacca Portuguese Creole" was given by Stefanie Pillai (Malaya) at the Department of Linguistics at SOAS University of London on 14 March 2017.

You can find out more about this event at https://goo.gl/D0dCLR
Malacca Portuguese Creole (MPC) traces its origins to language contact with Portuguese in the 16th and 17th Century in Malacca (about 150 km south of Malaysia’s capital city, Kuala Lumpur). Unions between locals and the Portuguese resulted in a community of Portuguese-Eurasians who began to use MPC as their first language. A minority of them continue to speak MPC, also referred to as Papiá Cristang. The number of MPC speakers has been steadily declining, with most Portuguese-Eurasians now speaking English as their first language. Thus, it is no surprise that MPC is classified as one of the endangered languages in Malaysia. However, in the Portuguese Settlement in Malacca, set up in the 1930s to house Malaccans of Portuguese-Eurasian descent, the language continues to be used. In this presentation, I look at the sounds of MPC based on analysis of recordings carried out at the Portuguese Settlement in Malacca. I will then discuss how these research findings on the sound system of MPC influenced the spelling system of a book produced in collaboration with the Malacca-Portuguese Eurasian Association, ‘Beng Prende Portugues Malaká (Papiá Cristang): Come, Let's Learn Portugues Malaká (Papiá Cristang)’ published by UMPress. This book is part of a language revitalisation project supported by the University of Malaya’s community engagement grant.

About the speaker
Stefanie Pillai is a Professor at the Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, University of Malaya (UM). Stefanie is also currently the Dean of the Faculty of Languages and Linguistics. She is the principle investigator of a project on the sounds of Malacca Portuguese Creole funded by a national Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS). Her initial work on the Creole is archived at the Endangered Languages Archive at SOAS, UK (http://elar.soas.ac.uk/deposit/0123). Since then, she has been looking more closely at the use and inter-generational transmission of the Creole, as well as at the segmental and prosodic features of the Creole. Stefanie has also been using her documentation work and research findings as a basis for revitalisation efforts. Working with the Malacca Portuguese-Eurasian Association, she led two community engagement projects: a CD of prayers and hymns in MPC, and a learning resource for MPC, ‘Beng Prende Portugues Malaká (Papiá Cristang): Come, Let's Learn Portugues Malaká (Papiá Cristang)’. The Creole is close to her heart as she is of Portuguese-Eurasian heritage on her maternal side. To learn more about her work on MPC, listen to her interviews at http://www.bfm.my/lingo-episode-10-kristang-part-1.html and http://www.bfm.my/lingo-episode-11-kristang-part-2.html.