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。特别是，我们将重点记录和分析曼加语，这是这些社区仅存的非洲遗产的语言和文化表达方式；用发言者自己的话说，‘贫穷是我们的困境，曼加语是我们唯一的遗产’。我们将努力通过将最先进的理论与民族志方法相结合的仔细记录，让人们了解他们唯一的遗产。虽然克里奥尔语言在斯里兰卡仍然被那些认同葡萄牙人并声称是葡萄牙后裔的人作为母语使用，但在克夫斯人(一个斯里兰卡民族，部分是16世纪葡萄牙商人和被奴役的班图人的后裔)中，这种语言现在只被封装在他们被称为MANJA的圣歌般的歌曲的歌词中。曼贾是这些社区仅存的非洲(可能是莫桑比克)遗产。然而，至关重要的是，曼加没有出现在(后)殖民叙事中。曼贾的文化实践一直是严格意义上的集体活动，直到1993年一位斯里兰卡前总统带着西兰比亚迪亚的社区在一个文化节上表演。近年来，由于对散居海外的非洲人的兴趣，该社区获得了一些吸引力。尽管SLP是几代克夫斯人的母语，但目前只剩下90岁的SLP人，她没有人可以交谈，因为其他人都转到僧伽罗语(一种印度-雅利安语和学校教学语言)--岛上的另一种主要语言是泰米尔语(德拉威甸语)。如果我们现在不采取行动，我们将永远错过了解南半球这个狭小空间里语言形成的机会，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就是在这里接触到的。尽管人们对前者和后者有很好的了解，但关于非洲人存在的记录很少。我们的项目通过对Manjas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结合在一起，将在适合社会获取的情况下进行阐述。最终的结果将是对非裔斯里兰卡葡萄牙语形成的貌似合理的重建。在这样做的过程中，我们将测试基于线索的历史重建，并改进我们的语言接触建模方法。此外，我们将铺平道路，一方面了解印度洋克里奥尔人与大西洋克里奥尔人的出现之间的差异/相似之处；另一方面了解如何通过曼加加强身份；从而为关于全球南方、后殖民/非殖民主义理论、移民研究和国际奴隶制研究的讨论铺平道路。然而，最重要的是，我们将使演讲者能够继续表演Manjas，并颁布他们的混合和多重身份，这将为当地、国家和跨国社会带来重要的心理-社会和认知利益。