Tracing the African roots of Sri-Lanka Portuguese

追溯斯里兰卡葡萄牙语的非洲根源

• 批准号: AH/Z505717/1
• 负责人: Ioanna Sitaridou
• 金额: $ 9.68万
• 依托单位: University of Cambridge
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2024 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FZ505717%2F1
• 关键词: Tracing; African; roots; Sri; Lanka; Tracing; African; roots; Sri; Lanka

The purpose of this project is to document a critically endangered language—Sri Lanka Portuguese (SLP)—among Afrodescent communities in north-western Sri Lanka. In particular, we will focus on documenting and analysing manja, the only remaining linguistic and cultural expression of African heritage for these communities; in the words of the speakers themselves 'Poverty is our plight and manja is our only inheritance'. We will strive to give visibility to their only inheritance through careful documentation combining state-of-the-art theorising with the ethnographic method.Whilst the Creole language is still spoken in Sri Lanka as a mother-tongue by those who identify with the Portuguese and claim to be of Portuguese descent, amongst the Kaffirs (a Sri Lanka ethnic group which is partially descendant from 16th C. Portuguese traders and enslaved Bantu people) the language is now only encapsulated in the lyrics of their chant-like songs called manja. Manja is the only remaining African (possibly Mozambican) heritage of these communities. Crucially, however, manja is absent from the (post-)colonial narratives. Cultural praxis in manja has been a strictly in-group activity until a former Sri-Lanka President brought the community in Sirambiyadiya to perform in a cultural festival in 1993. Over recent years, the community has gained some traction due to the interest in scattered African diasporas. Despite SLP being the native language for generations of Kaffirs, currently the only speaker left is 90-years old and she has nobody to speak SLP with since everyone else has shifted to Sinhala (an Indo-Aryan language and language of instruction at school)—the other major language of the island being Tamil (which is Dravidian). Consequently, manja and its 'precious' words and structures from African languages such as Emakhuwa, possibly CiYao, and Kiswahili are also under threat of extinction.If we do not act now we shall forever miss the opportunity to understand language formation in this liminal space of the Global South where the language of the colonisers (Portuguese), the African languages (from the Nampula area) and the indigenous Sri Lanka languages came into contact. Although a fair deal is known about the former and the latter, records of an African presence are sparse. Our project through an in-depth analysis of the manjas and wide-scoping synthesis combining fieldwork data with data mined from archives will be couched within socio-acquisitionally appropriate scenarios. The end-result would be a plausible reconstruction of the formation of Afro-Sri Lanka Portuguese. In doing so, we will test cue-based historical reconstruction and refine our approach to language contact modelling. Moreover, we will be paving the way to understanding differences/similarities between the emergence of Creoles of the Indian Ocean versus the Atlantic Ocean, on the one hand; and how identity is reinforced through manja, on the other; thus feeding into discussion about Global South, Postcolonial/Decolonial Theory, Migration Studies, and International Slavery Studies. Most importantly, however, we will be empowering speakers to continue performing manjas and enacting their mixed and multiple identities which will yield important psycho-social and cognitive benefits for the local, national and transnational societies.

该项目的目的是记录一种濒临灭绝的语言-Sri Lanka Portuguese（SLP），位于斯里兰卡西北部的非洲崭新社区。特别是，我们将专注于记录和分析Manja，这是非洲遗产的唯一语言和文化表达；用演讲者本身的话说，“贫穷是我们的页面，而曼贾是我们唯一的继承”。我们将努力通过将最先进的理论与民族志方法结合起来的仔细文献来使他们唯一的继承能够看出。当克里奥尔语在斯里兰卡仍在克里奥尔语中作为母呼声，因为那些与葡萄牙人认同并声称自己是葡萄牙语的人，在葡萄牙人中，是葡萄牙人（Qublirs eventers of porteres）。和被奴役的班图人）现在，该语言仅包含在他们的歌曲般的歌曲的歌词中。曼贾（Manja）是这些社区唯一剩下的非洲（可能是莫桑比克）遗产。然而，至关重要的是，（后）殖民的叙述不存在曼哈。曼贾（Manja）的文化实践一直是一项严格的小组内活动，直到1993年，斯里兰卡前总统将社区带到了Sirambiyadiya的社区参加文化节。近年来，由于对分散的非洲侨民的兴趣，该社区因兴趣而获得了一定的关注。尽管SLP是几代Kaffirs的母语，但目前唯一的发言人是90年的历史，她没有人会说SLP，因为其他所有人都转移到了学校的僧伽罗语（一种印度 - 雅利安语言和学校的教学语言），这是该岛的另一个主要语言是泰米尔语（泰米尔语）。因此，Manja及其来自非洲语言的“宝贵”单词和结构，例如Emakhuwa，可能的Ciyao和Kiswahili，它们也受到扩展的威胁。如果我们现在不采取行动语言开始联系。尽管对前者和后者有一项公平的了解，但非洲存在的记录很少。通过对MANJAS和广泛的合成的深入分析，将现场工作数据与从档案中挖掘的数据进行深入分析将在社会上适当的场景中库。最终结果将是对非洲兰卡葡萄牙语形成的合理重建。通过这样做，我们将测试基于提示的历史重建，并完善我们对语言接触建模的方法。此外，一方面，我们将为理解印度洋与大西洋克里奥尔人与大西洋的克里奥尔人的出现之间的差异/相似性铺平道路。以及如何通过Manja加强身份；因此，讨论了有关全球南方，后殖民/非殖民理论，移民研究和国际奴隶制研究的讨论。但是，最重要的是，我们将授权演讲者继续执行Manjas并制定其混合和多种身份，这将为当地，国家和跨国社会带来重要的心理社会和认知益处。