Introduction

Sri Lanka Portuguese (also known as Sri Lanka Creole Portuguese or Burgher Portuguese) is a Portuguese-lexified creole language spoken by the Portuguese Burgher community of Eastern Sri Lanka and historically also by the Kaffir and the Dutch Burgher communities. The formation of the creole is connected with Portuguese colonial domination of large tracts of Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) between the early 16th and the mid-17th century. Among other characteristics, the Portuguese Burgher and Kaffir communities are noted for their particular genres of music and dance.

This documentation project is a spin-off of "Portuguese-based creoles of the Dravidian space: Diachrony and synchrony" and is funded by the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme (SOAS, University of London). The objective is to create an annotated corpus of Sri Lanka Portuguese language, dance and music traditions (including primary materials located in various archives and libraries), which is made accessible in the Endangered Languages Archive.

Access the corpus here.