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

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斯里兰卡西北部非洲裔社区中一种极度濒危的语言——斯里兰卡葡萄牙语（SLP），特别是，我们将重点记录和分析曼贾语，这是斯里兰卡仅存的语言和文化表达方式。这些社区的非洲遗产；用演讲者自己的话来说，“贫困是我们的困境，曼贾是我们唯一的遗产”，我们将努力通过结合最先进理论的仔细记录来展示他们唯一的遗产。虽然克里奥尔语在斯里兰卡仍然被那些认同葡萄牙人并自称有葡萄牙血统的人作为母语使用，但在卡菲尔人（斯里兰卡的一个民族，部分是16世纪的后裔）中，克里奥尔语仍然被认为是葡萄牙人的母语。 C. 葡萄牙商人和被奴役的班图人），这种语言现在只包含在他们称为 Manja 的类似圣歌的歌词中，Manja 是这些社区唯一剩余的非洲（可能是莫桑比克）遗产。然而，至关重要的是，在（后）殖民叙事中，曼贾的文化实践一直是严格的群体内活动，直到 1993 年斯里兰卡前总统带领西拉姆比亚迪亚社区参加文化节。近年来，由于对分散的非洲侨民的兴趣，该社区获得了一些关注，尽管 SLP 是几代卡菲尔人的母语，但目前仅剩下 90 岁的人。她年纪大了，没有人可以和她讲 SLP，因为其他人都改用僧伽罗语（一种印度-雅利安语，也是学校的教学语言）——岛上的另一种主要语言是泰米尔语（属于德拉威语）、曼贾语及其附属语言。来自非洲语言的“珍贵”单词和结构，如 Emakhuwa、CiYao 和斯瓦希里语也面临灭绝的威胁。如果我们现在不采取行动，我们将永远错过在这个有限空间中理解语言形成的机会。在南半球，殖民者的语言（葡萄牙语）、非洲语言（来自楠普拉地区）和斯里兰卡本土语言发生了接触，尽管人们对前者和后者的了解相当多，但有记录。我们的项目通过对曼哈斯的深入分析和广泛的综合，将实地调查数据与从档案中挖掘的数据相结合，最终结果将是一个合理的重建。这在此过程中，我们将测试基于线索的历史重建并完善我们的语言接触建模方法，此外，我们将为理解印度克里奥尔语的出现之间的差异/相似之处铺平道路。一方面是海洋与大西洋；另一方面是如何通过 Manja 强化身份；然而，最重要的是，这引发了关于全球南方、后殖民/非殖民理论、移民研究和国际奴隶制研究的讨论。我们将赋予演讲者继续表演 Manjas 的能力，并展现他们的混合和多重身份，这将为地方、国家和跨国社会带来重要的心理社会和认知益处。