Origins

Patuá arose in Macau after the territory was occupied by Portugal in the mid-16th century and became a major hub of the Portuguese naval, commercial, and religious activities in East Asia.

The language developed first mainly among the descendants of Portuguese settlers. These often married women from Portuguese Malacca, Portuguese India and Portuguese Ceylon rather than from neighbouring China, so the language had strong Malay and Sinhala influence from the beginning. In the 17th century it was further influenced by the influx of immigrants from other Portuguese colonies in Asia, especially from Portuguese Malacca, Indonesia, and Portuguese Ceylon, that had been displaced by the Dutch expansion in the East Indies, and Japanese Christian refugees.

Evolution

Like any other language, Macanese underwent extensive changes in usage, grammar, syntax, and vocabulary over the centuries, in response to changes in Macau's demographics and cultural contacts. Some linguists see a sharp distinction between the "archaic" Macanese, spoken until the early 19th century, and the "modern" form that was strongly influenced by Cantonese. The modern version arose in the late 19th century, when Macanese men began marrying Chinese women from Macau and its hinterland in the Pearl River delta. The British occupation of Hong Kong from the mid-19th century also added many English words to the lexicon.

Over its history the language also acquired elements from several other Indian tongues and a string of other European and Asian languages. These varied influences made Macanese a unique "cocktail" of European and Asian languages.

Macanese lawyer and Patuá supporter Miguel Senna Fernandes^[4] has said that Patuá was "not yet dead, but the archaic form of Patuá has already died," adding that "modern" Patuá could be considered a "dialect derived from archaic Patuá." He also underlined the fact that "modern" Patuá has been strongly influenced by Cantonese, namely since the beginning of the 20th century, adding that it was "quite a miracle" that Patuá has been able to survive for four centuries in Macau, considering that "Chinese culture is quite absorbing."

"Let's revive an almost lost memory," Fernandes said about efforts by Patuá aficionados to ensure the survival of Macau's "sweet language" that, after all, is part of its unique history.^[5]

Cultural importance

The language played an important role in Macau's social and commercial development between the 16th and 19th centuries, when it was the main language of communication among Macau's Eurasian residents. However, even during that period the total number of speakers was relatively small, probably always amounting to just thousands, not tens of thousands of people.

Macanese continued to be spoken as the mother tongue of several thousand of people, in Macau, Hong Kong and elsewhere, through 19th and early 20th century. At that time, Macanese speakers were consciously using the language in opposition to the standard Portuguese of the metropolitan administration. In the early 20th century, for example, it was the vehicle of satirical sketches poking fun at Portuguese authorities. A few writers, such as the late poet José dos Santos Ferreira ("Adé"), chose the "sweet language" as their creative medium.

On the other hand, Macanese never enjoyed any official status, and was never formally taught in Macau. Starting in the late 19th century, its role in the life of the colony was greatly diminished by the central government's drive to establish standard Portuguese throughout its territories. High-society Macanese gradually stopped using it in the early 20th century, because of its perceived "low class" status as a "primitive Portuguese". All people, including many Chinese learning Portuguese as their second or third language, are required to learn standard European Portuguese.

Present status

Macanese use was already in decline while Macau was a Portuguese territory, and that situation is unlikely to improve now that the territory is under Chinese administration. Still, its speakers take great pride in the fact that Macau has its own local language, something that Hong Kong does not have. They argue that Macau's unique status as a 500-year-old bridge between Orient and the Occident justifies deliberate efforts to preserve the Macanese language. The language is included in UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger.^[2]

In spite of its unique character and centuries-old history, Macanese has received scant attention from linguists. Philologist Graciete Nogueira Batalha (1925–1992) published a number of papers on the language. A Macanese-Portuguese glossary was published in 2001.

Classification and related languages

Macanese is a creole language, that is, the result of a fusion of several languages and local innovations that became the mother tongue of a community. As such, it is difficult to classify within any major family.

Because of its historical development, it is closely related to other Portuguese- and Malay-influenced creoles of Southeast Asia, notably the Kristang language of Malacca and the extinct Portuguese-influenced creoles of Indonesia and Flores, as well as to the Indo-Portuguese creoles of Sri Lanka and India.

Lexicon

Phonology

The phonology of Macanese is relatively similar to European Portuguese, however there is a slightly tonal or sing-songy quality, possibly as an influence of Cantonese. Otherwise, the pronunciation of nasal vowels may differ between different speakers, as there is no standardized pronunciation; for example, sâm ("to be", from Portuguese são "they (pl.) are") may be pronounced either as /saŋ/ or /sã/, hence the alternative spelling sã. Likewise, ⟨s⟩ before a consonant or word-finally may be pronounced either as /s/ or /ʃ/, the latter a feature in European Portuguese. Portuguese /ʎ/ tends to become just /l/, for example Macanese mulé ("woman") derived from Portuguese mulher, although the variation mulier also exists.

Unlike in Portuguese however, the first syllable in Macanese is usually pronounced openly even when unstressed,^[7] for example comê (from Portuguese comer /kuˈmeɾ/) being pronounced /kɔˈme/ rather than /kuˈme/, as if it was spelt cómê. This however does not apply to unstressed final vowels; unstressed ⟨o⟩ in the final syllable of a word is generally still pronounced as /u/. Also, /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ may be pronounced as /t͡ʃ/ and /d͡ʒ/ respectively, although /t͡ʃ/ is always used for words of Cantonese origin containing "ch".

Diphthongs from Portuguese are often done away with in Macanese; for example, Portuguese cousa (archaic form of coisa ("thing")) becomes Macanese cuza ("what"), and Portuguese dois ("two") becomes dôs in Macanese. In addition, initial unstressed vowels may be dropped entirely, for example Portuguese acabar and alugar becoming cavâ and lugâ respectively.

Grammar

There has been little scientific research of Macanese grammar, much less on its development between the 16th and 20th centuries. Its grammatical structure seems to incorporate both European and Asian elements.

Like most Asian languages, Macanese lacks definite articles (but has an indefinite article unga), and does not inflect verbs: for example, io sâm means "I am," and êle sâm means "he/she is".

Macanese also lacks pronoun cases (io or iou means "I," "me" and "mine"), and forms possessive pronouns using the suffix -sua or -sa; for example, ilôtro-sua or ilôtro-sa means "theirs", while iou-sua or io-sa means "my". Certain possessive pronouns are however retained from Portuguese; minha is used as a synonym to io-s(u)a in emotional situations, while nôsso and vôsso are also used in Macanese for the first-person plural possessive pronoun and the second-person singular possessive pronoun respectively, in addition to nôs-s(u)a and vôs-s(u)a. In both speech and literature, -sa is more common than -sua, and the Glossário do dialecto macaense (1988) has -sa as one of its entries, only mentioning -sua in its description. In general, pronouns in Macanese are not gendered, however some speakers may use êla to indicate "she" or "her", as opposed to using êle for all genders.

Progressive action (denoted in English by the "-ing" verbal forms) is denoted by a separate particle tâ, presumably derived from Portuguese está ("it is"). Completed actions are likewise indicated by the particle já, presumably from Portuguese já ("right now" or "already").

Reduplication is used to make plural nouns (casa-casa = "houses"), plural adjectives (china-china = "several Chinese people or things"), and emphatic adverbs (cedo-cedo = "very early"), a pattern also found in Malay grammar. Otherwise, some nouns may be pluralized with no reduplication, and the pluralization is instead implied through context, much like in Cantonese.

Similarly to Chavacano, na is used to indicate "in", "at", or "on", while pa (from Portuguese para) is used to indicate "to" or "towards".

di (literally "of", from Portuguese de) can also be used to connect nouns with adjectives, for example casa qui di largo meaning "large house", or combined with bêm ("well") to mean "very", for example bêm-di filiz meaning "very happy".

There are also some grammatical features taken from Cantonese, for example the usage of verb-not-verb for asking yes-no questions, e.g. (vôs) quêro-nôm-quêro meaning "do you want".

Writing system

Patuá has no standardised orthography.

In the de-facto standard orthography, the circumflex (â, ê, ô) or acute accent (á, é, í, ó, ú) are used to indicate syllable stress and open-vowel pronunciation, especially in the case of monosyllabic words. The tilde is generally not used, except sometimes in the word sã (usually written as sâm or sam). The -ão suffix in Portuguese becomes -ám in Macanese if stressed, for example coraçám ("heart") from Portuguese coração; or -a if unstressed, for example bênça from Portuguese bênção. When /e/ is reduced or otherwise morphed into /i/ or /ɪ/, it is often spelt phonetically with ⟨i⟩, for example ninguim and qui compared to Portuguese ninguém and que. Confusingly, etymological ⟨s⟩ pronounced as /z/ may be written either as ⟨s⟩ or ⟨z⟩, for example cuza ("what, which") and ancusa ("thing") both derive from dated Portuguese cousa, but are spelt differently. Portuguese /ʒ/ may be written as either ⟨g⟩, ⟨j⟩ or ⟨z⟩, the former two deriving from Portuguese orthography, for example Portuguese fingir may become fingí or finzí.

Otherwise, the de-facto standard orthography tends to follow Portuguese orthographic rules, for example using ⟨c⟩ for /k/ before ⟨a⟩, ⟨o⟩, and ⟨u⟩ (compare Macanese cacús with Malay kakus). Words borrowed from Cantonese may use an orthography similar to the Hong Kong Government Cantonese Romanisation, for example leong-fan ("grass jelly") borrowed from Cantonese 涼粉.

The indefinite article pronounced /ˈuŋa/ is most commonly spelt unga, however some sources may spell it instead as ung'a, to prevent the word from being pronounced as /ˈuŋɡa/ (which some speakers do anyway). This also applies to its derived terms, such as estunga ("this") or cadunga ("each").