Notes on the Creole Portuguese of Bidau, East Timor

Abstract

This paper discusses a variety of Southeast Asian Creole Portuguese (henceforth SACP) formerly spoken in Bidau, Dili, East Timor. An outline of the sociohistorical setting of the language is followed by a discussion of data sources and references to Bidau Creole Portuguese (BCP) in the literature on Timor. Included is a discussion of an unpublished letter from the Vigário Geral of Timor to Hugo Schuchardt, containing a comparative list of sentences in "corrupt Portuguese," Metropolitan Portuguese, and Tetum. The body of the paper is concerned with the analysis and description of a limited and fragmentary corpus that was tape recorded in the early 1950s by the Missao Antropológica de Timor. These materials, together with the available written sources, permit a preliminary account of certain aspects of the phonology (the sequence V + [ng], palatal affricates, [r], and reflexes of Old Portuguese /ei/ and /l/) and the morphosyn-tax of the creole (the NP, the genetive possessive construction, the predicate, the negators and TMA system, and clause structure). Comparisons are made with other varieties of East Asian Creole Portuguese and SACP throughout. It is found that the language of Bidau is closely related to the creoles of Malacca and Macao.

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