Unlike their Spanish counterparts, or the Dutch or English who were to follow them, the Portuguese officially practiced the policy of miscegenation in their colonization of Africa and Asia. One result of this policy is apparent today in the string of Portuguese-based creole languages, stretching from the west coast of Africa to Macao in the Far East.

Based on the geographical distribution of these creoles, two general groups may be distinguished: the African group, consisting of Cape Verdean Creole Portuguese (CP), Guinea-Bissau CP, São Tomé CP, Angolar CP, Príncipe CP and Annobon CP, which are spoken on the west coast of Africa, and the Asian group, which is comprised of the Portuguese creoles of Diu, Daman, Korlai and Cannanore in India, Batticaloa CP in Sri Lanka, Malacca CP in Malaysia, Bidau CP in East Timor, and Macanese CP in Macao. In the last 30 years, several members of the African group have been the subject of collections, monographs and/or grammars (Almada 1961, Ferraz 1979, Giinter 1973, Lopes da Silva 1984, Valkhoff 1966, Valkhoff et al. 1975, Wilson 1962). In addition, interesting areal work involving some of the African Portuguese-based creoles has also been undertaken (Boretzky 1983 and references therein). In general, however, these creoles have not received the attention that has been given to, for example, many English-based or French-based creoles.

Regarding research on the creoles of the Asian group, the neglect is more apparent. For instance, since the ground-breaking research by Schuchhardt (1882, 1883a, 1883b, 1889a, 1889b), Coelho (1880-86) and Dalgado (1900, 1903, 1906, 1917, 1922), the Asian Portuguese creoles have virtually been forgotten, even though several of these creoles are still very much alive. Recently, however, papers and monographs have begun to appear. Batalha (1974, 1977, 1985) concentrates on Macanese CP, while L. Theban (1975, 1977), M. Theban (1973) and Theban and Theban (1980) study the verbal systems and structure of the Indo-Portuguese (IP) creoles in contrast with those of their adstrat languages. Theban (1985) discusses a story in Korlai Portuguese. The studies by Hancock (1975) and Ferraz (1987) examine both African as well as Asian Portuguese creoles from a comparative stand-point and Smith (1977, 1979a, 1979b, 1984) treats the phonology and convergence phenomena in Batticaloa CP. Jackson (1979, 1985, 1987, 1990) discusses Korlai and Batticaloa CP texts, albeit in a more literary vain and Baxter (1988) presents the first in-depth grammar of an Asian Portuguese creole. Finally, Toms (1988, 1990) examines the sociolinguistic situation of Macanese CP, while Clements (1990, to appear -a) addresses the phenomenon of intense language contact situations using newly collected data from Korlai CP. Although this brief overview of the current literature on Asian Portuguese creoles by no means pretends to be exhaustive, it does contain the main contributions to the field.

One may ask why the Asian Portuguese creoles have not attracted the attention of more scholars. From the Asian side, I can only speak of the situation in India. Indian scholars have not pursued the study of the IP creoles, not because such projects do not hold interest. Rather, such research is of secondary importance to, for example, literacy projects, which are much more necessary than results from research on creole languages, even though such research could lead to highly practical applications in the areas of language planning and language teaching.   —638→   Regarding the situation in the west, Holm (1989: 259) suggests that the apparent lack of interest in the Portuguese-based creoles is due, in part, to the general state of Portuguese studies. Portuguese is seldom studied in the United States or in Europe outside of Portugal. As he points out, although the number of Portuguese speakers surpasses that of Francophones in the world, Portuguese is considered a minor Romance language and attracts far less attention in terms of research.

The purpose of the present paper, then, is to begin the long task of filling the gap in the research on the IP creoles as they are spoken today in Diu, Daman and Korlai. First, a short description of the history and current situation of Daman and Diu CP and their speakers will be given. Then, a historical sketch of Korlai Portuguese (KP) will be presented to serve as the basis for the discussion of the typological transition KP is currently undergoing. Here I will examine the extra-linguistic forces that seem to be propelling the transition and what linguistic indicators reflect the transition most reliably.

2. 1. Daman

The area of Daman is approximately 150 kms. north of Bombay. It is 15 kms. long, 7 1/2 at it widest and contains 26 towns and villages. In five of these villages there are Christian inhabitants and Daman CP speakers are found in only two, i. e. in Big Daman, with around 3,500 Daman CP speakers, and Small Daman, which has in the vicinity of 700 speakers.

Daman was colonized by the Portuguese in the mid-sixteenth century and remained a colony until 1961, the date on which it, as well as Diu and Goa, became part of India. As elsewhere in their seaborne empire, the Portuguese in Daman followed the policy of miscegenation. This practice was advantageous for both new Indian Christians as well as the Portuguese. Indian converts and their offspring, who had hitherto been locked into the rigid Hindu caste system, were given a chance to better themselves socially and economically. For their part, the Portuguese, in fomenting Eurasian offspring, assured themselves of a stable source of loyal manpower for their military ranks. Boxer (1963: 77-78) mentions that Alfonso de Albuquerque regarded the Eurasians, i. e. the real Indo-Portuguese, as the main support of the Portuguese power in Asia and that they «had to be employed on an increasing scale, particularly when Brazil attracted the majority of emigrants from Portugal in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries».

Contrary to the situation in Goa, where the Portuguese were unable to escape the deeply rooted caste system, the Christian population in Daman is not divided along caste lines. Social status is measured by the importance of one's profession and one's income. So, for example, while differences in social class among the different Christians do exist, social events are attended by all classes, something which would be impossible in the caste system of the Hindu culture in the same area. However, within the society as a whole, the Christian population in Daman seems to be locked into a limited set of employment options, which is one of the defining traits of the caste system.

With respect to Daman CP, there are two slightly different varieties. One is spoken by the Catholic population in Small Daman and is the one that has experienced more decreolizing influence from standard Portuguese. The other variety is spoken in Badrapur (< Ptg. Bairro de Flores), a neighborhood in Big Daman, which is inhabited only by Catholics. Because the neighborhood is somewhat isolated, their creole has experienced less decreolization. Both varieties are documented in Dalgado (1903)¹³⁶ and both have existed beside standard Portuguese from their inception until 1961. Presently, standard Portuguese in Daman has become relegated from the main medium of instruction to an optional subject in school, which very few actually study. The main adstrat influences on Daman CP no longer come from Portuguese but from Gujarati and English. Gujarati, a daughter of Sanskrit, is the regional language and is spoken more or less proficiently by the Daman Christians. Since it has also co-existed with Daman CP since the beginning, one finds an unmistakable Gujarati influence on the creole, most of it concentrated in vocabulary items, although some structural influence is also evident (e. g. postpositions such as junt in minh junt 'near me' or tras in el tras 'behind him' where Portuguese has exclusively prepositions). For its part, English is rapidly becoming the language of the church in Daman as elsewhere in India. It is also the language of instruction in school and the official language in government services. Since traditionally the main occupations of the Daman CP speakers have been in the administration, i. e. the police,   —639→   the military and education, they generally have a good command of English. Among the youth, English is gaining ground as the dominant language of communication and interest in maintaining the creole appears to be dwindling. Because of the increasingly important role English is playing in the lives of the younger Daman CP speakers, the creole is considered by some to be in danger of extinction in the next 100 years. At present, however, it is very much alive, forms an integral part of the communities' lives, especially in Badrapur, and is still a means of cultural expression in song and verse. Since Dalgado's (1903) contribution, one dissertation (Santos Lopes 1959-60) has been written on Daman CP.¹³⁷ Apart from this, no other research appears to have been carried out on Daman CP.

2. 2. Diu

Crossing the Gulf of Cambaia from Daman in a northeasterly direction, one comes to the small Island of Diu (15 kms. long and 5 kms. wide at its widest with six main towns/villages). Whereas in Daman the Christian population is about 6% of the total population, here they make up a mere 2% of the population, all of which live on the west-most point of the island, within the walls of Diu town. Two groups of speakers are to be distinguished: a group of around 170 people which constitutes the Diu Catholic community proper, and another group of approximately 1,500 returnees, the great majority Hindus, from Africa.¹³⁸

Diu was settled in 1535, some 20 years earlier than Daman. In many ways the history of Diu is like that of Daman. Thus, here as well the practice of miscegenation gave way to a substantial Eurasian population who played a key role in the Portuguese military. Diu was particularly valuable to the Portuguese because it was a well known commercial port even prior to their arrival. Today commerce continues to be a mainstay of the island, though few if any of the Christians are in the business profession. As in Daman, they are employed in jobs of government service. In addition, many Diu residents, Catholics as well as Hindus and Muslims, work in Portugal or in other foreign countries. This provides Diu with a substantial influx of foreign currency. Comparatively speaking, Diu is very prosperous.

With respect to the linguistic situation in Diu, only three families, i. e. about 15 people, can be said to still speak Diu CP. In many Catholic families the adults speak standard Portuguese, but the children are more proficient in English to the detriment of their Portuguese. For their part, the returnees from Africa speak Portuguese to varying degrees of proficiency, depending on their education and exposure to the language while they were in Africa. Gujarati, and not Portuguese, is the mother tongue of most of the returnees. In Diu, English is also the predominant language in the church and administration, apart from being a valued commodity due to the high percentage of emigration. Because of the difficulty of finding work on the island itself, there are few 20 year olds who have not gone outside of the region/country in search of employment. It seems, then, that within a generation Diu CP Portuguese will die out, though standard Portuguese will probably hold out for some generations to come.¹³⁹

3. 1. Background and general situation of Korlai

KP is spoken by around 760 inhabitants of the village of Korlai, which is located about 200 kms. south of Bombay, on the southern mouth of the Kundalika river. The village came into being between 1594 and 1630 and was initially situated at the foot of the «Morro», or the Korlai fort, which was built on a promontory overlooking the estuary of the river (see maps [not in scale]). The Korlai fort was built by Muslims around 1530 but captured by the Portuguese in 1594. It is thought the village sprang up at the foot of the promontory as the Indian Christians increased their trade with the soldiers of the fort.

Whereas the areas of Daman and Diu remained Portuguese colonies until 1961, the Chaul Korlai area had already begun to decline as a key Portuguese port by the beginning of the 17th century. By that time, the KP-speaking community had already been formed and consisted of native Indian Christians as opposed to Eurasians. This is deduced from the observation that the Eurasians became part of the warrior caste and thus would never have become farmers, given that farming was a low-caste occupation. The inhabitants of Korlai were most likely tenant farmers who initially worked for the Portuguese and then converted to Christianity in the hope of acquiring some wealth or out of fear for their well-being (cf. Boxer 1963: 59). In converting to Catholicism, the creole language became part of their religious identity.

In 1740, both the Chaul and Korlai forts were seized by the Marathas, who subsequently obliged the Portuguese and Indo-Portuguese to abandon the area. Most of them resettled in Goa. Those who did not have the resources to resettle, i. e. the lower caste Indian Christians, remained in Korlai and Chaul. However, the Maratha occupation of the Korlai fort did trigger the relocation of Korlai village itself. Between 1740 and 1750 church records indicate that a new church was built about a mile away from the one at the base of the Korlai fort and that it was given the name A Nossa Senhora do Monte do Carmo, 'Our Lady of Mount Carmel', which remains the name of the Korlai church today.

It was already noted that from at least 1740 onward, but probably from much earlier on, the Korlai villagers had been tenant farmers. Around 1930, Korlai farmers began to buy land with the aid of some Bombay Catholics. Many also acquired land through the Tenant's Act, a land reform act that was implemented after India won independence from England in 1947. Today, the great majority of Korlai families own at least a small plot of farm or forest land.

It seems surprising that the Korlai villagers have been able to keep their language and culture alive, even though they have been surrounded by Marathi-speaking Hindus, Muslims and Jews for more than 400 years. Two interrelated factors have promoted the maintenance of their language and culture. First and foremost, their Christian religion and the Hindu caste system created strong barriers of isolation. Since the Korlai villagers were Indian, even though they were Catholic, they were part of the caste system, which forbids mixing between different castes. Given that caste was and still is inextricably linked to profession, they could not (and still do not) marry any Christian outside their own caste/profession. Moreover, because of the religion barrier, they could not (and still generally do not) mix with anyone who is not Catholic. Secondly, although the Korlai villagers were but tenant farmers, they were nevertheless self-sufficient. They grew most of what they ate and bartered for other necessities. As a consequence, they were doubly isolated. In 1740, when the Portuguese were forced to pull out of the Korlai area altogether, the KP speakers remained behind, living the same peasant life they had lived before the Portuguese left. Still today, this life style is generally maintained. It provides them with food and a constant albeit meager source of income.

Despite this isolation, the influence of Marathi and the Indian culture is growing ever stronger in Korlai. Education, whose medium is Marathi, is gradually gaining in importance. Up until 1980, one could only study the first four years of primary school in Korlai, after which one was obliged to pursue further education in a bigger village or town. Now Korlai has both a primary and a high school. According to statistics gleaned from a 1987 village census, 86.7% of the children between three and 18 at tend kindergarten or school. By contrast, according to the same census, only 51.7% of all the adults 19 years old and over have had from one to four years of primary instruction. Marathi has also become the official language of the church in this rural region. As a consequence, all ceremonies, official and unofficial, are held in Marathi. Finally, the outer world is having an increasing impact on Korlai. In the last five years, television has become an important part of their lives and they have been introduced to many things through this medium. Furthermore, Korlai is situated on the south side of a wide river that until 1986 had no nearby bridge. Thus, relatively few people made the trip across to Korlai and transport on a large scale was very difficult. With a bridge now in place, traffic flows in from Bombay. Land developers and industrial companies have already entered the area and have begun to buy up available land, which will either be plotted and sold to affluent city dwellers for vacation homes or become sites for factories.

In sum, the period of relative self-sufficiency and isolation for Korlai appears to be drawing to an end. As villagers sell their land and/or are obliged to look outside the village for employment, there will be growing pressure to acquire a   —641→   competitive command of Marathi, which now only a very small minority can be said to possess. As the area expands, the economic base of the area will also change and even more intense exposure to Marathi will take place. One consequence of this is already apparent in the growing presence of Marathi vocabulary and structure in KP.

In the next section I will examine two ways of measuring the Marathi influence on KP -one by calculating the percentage of Marathi lexical material in KP, the other by calculating the percentage of Marathi syntactic structures found in KP- to see what story each tells about the growing impact of Marathi on KP.

3. 2. The Development of the Lexicon and Word Order in KP

The changes occurring today in KP fall under the rubric of language borrowing. In the KP Marathi language contact situation, Marathi has increasingly become a Target Language for the Korlai villagers.¹⁴¹ This stems from the need and the will on the part of the KP speakers to maintain a linguistic medium of communication between themselves and the Marathi speakers in the surrounding area.

Depending on the nature of a given language contact situation, there will be more or less borrowing of vocabulary and structures. Thomason and Kaufman (T&K) (1988: 74-6) distinguish five levels or degrees of intensity in language borrowing. (1) displays an excerpt from their scale. Only the points relating to the lexicon and word order structure have been extracted.

(1)

Level 1: Casual Contact.

Lexicon: content words (non-basic before basic vocabulary)

Structure: slight structural borrowing

Level 2: Slightly More Intense Contact: slight structural borrowing.

Lexicon: conjunctions and various adverbial particles

Structure: slight syntactic and lexical semantic features. Syntactic features will be restricted to new functions with little or no typological disruption.

Level 3: More Intense Contact: Slightly More Structural Borrowing.

Lexicon: function words (adpositions). Derivational affixes. Personal/demonstrative pronouns and low numerals are more likely to be borrowed at this stage.

Structure: in syntax, a complete SVO->SOV will not take place at this level. Some aspects of such a switch may be found, e. g. postpositions in a hitherto prepositional language.

Level 4: Strong Cultural Pressure: Moderate Structural Borrowing.

Structure: fairly extensive word order changes will occur at this stage, as will other syntactic changes that cause little categorial alteration.

Level 5: Very Strong Cultural Pressure: Heavy Structural Borrowing.

Structure: major structural changes. Changes in word order rules.

Using this scale as an index, I will examine lexical and word order data from three groups of KP speakers. By contrasting the data of the three groups, it should be possible, theoretically, to measure in a significant way the increasing cultural pressure under which KP speakers find themselves.

The lexicon of a given speaker tells a somewhat different story than the general word order of the same speaker in that one is generally more conscious of which lexical items belong to which register in one's native language than one is of the general word order prevalent in one's speech. In the case of the KP lexicon, this observation prompts the following questions: (1) what registers are available to the speakers in their respective repertoires for relating stories and events?, and (2) what does the availability to registers reflect about individual language use and about the development of KP as a language in contact? To provide some answers to these questions, stories and monologues were recorded from three groups of speakers. The speech of the members of each group is representative of a certain type of KP speaker.

Group I is comprised of two speakers who have been living out of the village for 35 (Angelin) and 50 (Jerome) years. While Jerome's (#2) text was taped in 1986 when he was 56 years old, Angelin's (#1) speech is taken from four stories, two of which were written down by her around 1978-79 (cf. Jackson 1987 and Theban 1985), and two of which were taped in 1986 at age 52. Having been away from the village for so many years, these speakers have not experienced many of the cultural pressures the Korlai villagers have undergone over the last 35-50 years. At the same time, they have been exposed to English, given that the language of communication of the urban Catholic communities in India is English. However, Jerome, who speaks Indian English, still dis plays Object Verb word order regularly.   —642→   Angelin speaks English with KP.

The three members of Group II were between the ages of 62-72 at the time their stories were taped (Rozy's [#3] stories were taped in 1989, Francis'[#4] story in 1986, Juze's [#5] story in 1988). They have lived their lives in Korlai and each has a reputation as a story teller. However, due to their different backgrounds, the speech of each is somewhat different. For example, speakers #3 and #5 command certain KP vocabulary that younger people only passively know if at all. Speaker #4, Francis, has a command of the same vocabulary. In addition, during a long period of time he was a lay assistant to the Portuguese parish priests who lived in Korlai, and his active lexicon, when speaking to a foreigner like me, reflects his sustained exposure to standard Portuguese.

The members of Group III are children who were 8-10 years old at the time their speech was recorded. They represent the new generation which has been systematically exposed to Marathi since the age of four.

The recording of all speech was carried out by me or a trained assistant (only in the case of Rozy). The recorded texts are stories or monologues and, in one case (Rajni), some parts of a dialogue. The statistics on the percentage of Marathi lexical items in the speech of all speakers are given in (2).

Regarding Jerome's speech(#2), we see that the percentage of non-KP words is actually higher than those of Rozy (#3) and Francis (#4). However, Angelin's speech (#1) contains only 7% Marathi vocabulary. These facts can be interpreted in the following manner. Jerome's text is a monologue in which he relates how he left Korlai for Bombay during a year of drought in 1940. In the sequence about his work, a large amount of English vocabulary is used because his job-related vocabulary is predominately English. Of the 51 English words he used, 48 are nouns, three are adjectives. If we disregard the English and take only the Marathi vocabulary into account, we see that both Angelin and Jerome have 7% Marathi vocabulary. The relatively low percentage of Marathi vocabulary in Angelin's texts is related to the fact that her texts are traditional stories that she memorized word-for-word when she was young. They contain elements that no longer exist in KP, such as the past marker ja and word-initial /f/ in fala (compare KP hala or ala). Thus, the speech of her stories can be reasonably viewed as antiquated. Since Jerome's speech also contains these and other antiquated elements, we can conclude that his speech as well as Angelin's story -telling register, reflect an earlier stage of KP as it was spoken in the village some 40-50 years ago but that has ceased to exist.

Whereas in Group I the differences in percentages of non-KP words can be somewhat   —643→   reconciled by appealing to context-specific use of English in Jerome's speech, to reconcile the disparity in percentages of Group II speakers we must appeal to the notion of stylistic expansion. The speech of both Rozy and Francis contain comparable percentages of Marathi vocabulary. Both speakers still actively use KP vocabulary that is known only passively or not at all by the younger speakers, e. g. the KP cardinal and ordinal numbers, certain adverbs like torm 'back' (< Ptg. tornar?) as in torm anda 'to go back' where Marathi para pÐrÐt 'back' is currently used, and nouns such as suseg (<Ptg. sossego) 'quiet, tranquility' where Marathi aram is often preferred, especially by younger speakers. In addition, in his storytelling Francis consistently employs elements that he learned from his years of contact with the Portuguese-speaking priests, e. g. foi 'went' (< Ptg. foi '(s)he went') instead of KP jaho 'went' (< Ptg. 'já foi' s/he already went'), dize 'say' (< Ptg. dizer 'say') instead of KP hala 'say'(< Ptg. falar 'speak'), the preposition depayde 'after' (< Ptg. depois de 'after') instead of the postposition KP-ni 'after', which has been taken from Marathi. Francis' access to at least two different registers, i. e. the older register of KP and the one he developed from his contact with the priests, would account for the fact that of the three members of Group II, his speech has the lowest percentage of Marathi words.

Accounting for the high percentage of Marathi lexical items in Juze's speech is more difficult. It is a given that all Korlai adults are bilingual. Thus, they all have access to KP and Marathi vocabulary. In the case of Juze's speech, we find very sporadically elements like dize, which indicates he is aware of the priest register, although he has no command of it. This also fits his background. He did not maintain close or sustained contact with the Portuguese parish priests. The elements in his speech from the priests are those that all older villagers share, namely the very sporadic use of items like Ptg. assenta 'sit down!' instead of KP sata 'sit down!', Ptg. esta bom 'are you well' instead of KP tbuni 'are you well', and dize 'say' instead of KP hala 'say'. The difference is that Francis uses these elements consistently in his stories whereas Rozy does less so and Juze not at all. Moreover, Juze regularly uses Marathi words where an obvious corresponding KP counterpart exists. Here are so me examples: M pushkl 'more' (used in the sense of 'much, a lot') instead of KP m t 'many', M krtana 'while doing' instead of KP r hedze' while doing' and M prja' subjects (of a king)' instead of KP jet 'people'. In this last example, the Marathi word has a more specific content than the corresponding KP word. Thus, it seems feasible to assume that Juze's use of Marathi lexical items represents an instance of stylistic expansion.¹⁴² As a group, Group II's composite percentage of non-KP words (23.5%) is higher than that of Group I's (15%), but not significantly so.

With respect to Group III, the younger generation, one would also expect to find another, perhaps more considerable rise in the percentage of Marathi vocabulary used. This is, however, hardly the case. The childrens' percentages are uniform, fluctuating within six percentage points from one another, and average out to 26.5%, only three percentage points higher than the average of Group II. Thus, even though the subjects in Group III have been regularly exposed to Marathi in kindergarten and primary school since they were approximately four years old, one finds fewer Marathi lexical items in their speech than one would expect. This seems to be due to the fact that their speech consists, to a large extent, of basic vocabulary. T&K (1988: 74) note that non-basic vocabulary is adopted into a language before basic vocabulary. Accordingly, one would expect to find less evidence of lexical borrowing among children if their language use draws more on core than peripheral vocabulary. This expectation is borne out. Moreover, the Marathi words contained in the children's speech are overwhelmingly nouns and adverbs, while there is a general absence of descriptive adjectives and verbs. This last fact seems to coincide with the observation that verbs are less readily borrowed than nouns, adverbs, etc. (cf. T&K 1988: 349, n. 3). It appears, then, that because of developmental reasons, the expected higher percentage of Marathi words in the childrens' speech is not borne out.

In sum, although we see that the percentage of Marathi lexical items in the speech of the three representative groups of KP speakers does increase as the exposure to Marathi becomes more intense, the differences are hardly appreciable, due to a variety of factors that come into play. In effect, it is apparent that one must take social, cultural, developmental and situational factors into account in interpreting the percentages: the developmental stage of vocabulary use evident in the children's speech, the context-specific language use in Jerome's speech and stylistic expansion present in Juze's speech.

As to what lexical items were borrowed and   —644→   what degree of borrowing is thereby reflected, recall that the borrowing of conjunctions and/or adverbial particles indicates a level two contact intensity, while having borrowed adpositions, derivational morphemes, demonstrative pronouns and lower numerals is evidence of level three contact intensity. All these elements are represented in the speech of the Korlai villagers: all speakers without exception use the Marathi conjunctions ani 'and', tr 'then', the adverbial particles tabortob 'quickly' ptapt 'fast', phtkn 'quickly', phkt 'only', nemka 'just enough', tri 'even', pn 'also', the derivational morpheme wala (a type of agentive morpheme) as in letwala 'milk carrier', the postpositions pasun 'from, since' and -ni 'after' and the demonstrative pronoun ye 'this', presumably from Marathi he 'this-NEUT'. In addition, all speakers also employ Marathi lexemes for cardinal numbers over ten (from one to ten Portuguese terms are used) and Marathi lexemes for ordinal numbers. Furthermore, KP has developed its own means for incorporating Marathi verbs. Apart from the regular conjugation classes modeled on Portuguese, i. e. kata-kato (< Ptg. cantar-cantou) 'sing-sang', kume-kumew (< Ptg. comer-comeu) 'eat-ate', subi-subiw (< Ptg. subir-subiu) 'climb-climbed', KP possesses the -u conjugation class, by which it transforms Marathi verbs: KP tangu (< M tangne 'hang'), KP smzu (< M smzne 'understand') etc. The form of this conjugation class was taken from the Marathi verb form in -u as in karu 'do'. In sum, it is safe to say that, based on the Marathi lexical items found in KP, the contact situation is level three intensity, the maximum level of lexical borrowing on T&K's scale.

In turning now to the discussion of word order, we will see that it proves to be more homogeneous across speakers of a given group, regardless of social, cultural, developmental or situational considerations. The word order percentages for the three groups are given in (3). The numbers largely speak for themselves. While Group I displays a marked preference for VO/VC word order (#I more so that #2 because of the fixed nature of the stories), Group II shows no predilection whatsoever. The younger speakers of Group III, however, definitely exhibit a strong preference for OV/CV order. The speech of this third group represents the crossover point from a level four contact situation of strong cultural pressure to a level five of extremely strong pressure, whereby the typology of the language itself is transformed. This VO/VC-> OV/CV transition coincides directly with the current situation in the village with respect to the roles the school and church currently play. It is evident that structural borrowing rather than lexical borrowing gives a more reliable picture of what is presently occurring in the KP-Marathi contact situation. This is due to the fact that more social, cultural, developmental and situational factors come into play with word use. That T&K's scale allows no specific statement regarding lexical borrowing beyond a level three contact intensity should be seen as a reflection of the nature of lexical borrowing rather than an inadequacy of the scale, which has a sound empirical base. Whether structural borrowing is always   —645→   the more reliable indicator for gauging intensity in contact situations, as it clearly is in KP seems very likely. It is predicted by T&K's scale and solidly substantiated by the results of this study.

In this paper the present situation of the study of Portuguese-based creoles was discussed. Of these creoles it was found that the Asian group, in particular the IP creoles, are in the greatest need of scholarly attention. The IP creoles lend themselves to several different types of investigation, one of which is the study of language contact phenomena. It was shown that they contain important keys to understanding the dynamics of homogeneous language contact situations. More specifically, the reliability of structural borrowing vs. lexical borrowing for measuring cultural pressure was examined in KP. The examination revealed that social, cultural, developmental and situational factors significantly influence lexical borrowing but have little or no bearing on the adoption of structures. Thus, of the two, structural borrowing is the more reliable indicator of contact intensity in the KP-Marathi contact situation. It seems highly probable that this finding would be applicable to homogeneous contact situations in general.

In addition to the study of contact phenomena, the Portuguese-based creoles lend themselves to much needed contrastive studies which could lead to a more comprehensive understanding of the origin and development of the Portuguese pidgins/creoles as they spread from Africa eastward to India and beyond. Their study can also shed light on the very origins of pidgin Portuguese, as Clements (to appear -b) points out. Moreover, Holm (1989: 259) notes as well that «[t]he study of the Portuguese-based creoles promises to provide answers to some of the most fundamental questions about the origin and development of the Atlantic creoles». Thus, there is a wealth of knowledge to be discovered in the study of Portuguese creoles, which will undoubtedly result in important contributions to the general discipline of pidgin and creole linguistics.

Holm (1989: 259) mentions that travel to Asia is prohibitively expensive. However, such funding agencies as the Fulbright Foundation and the American Institute for Indian Studies regularly offer grants for projects in Africa and Asia. Although challenging, the study of the Portuguese-based creoles can add in significant ways to the ever-increasing body of knowledge on pidgin and creole languages.

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Hispania [Publicaciones periódicas]. Volume 74, Number 3, September 1991