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Indo-Portuguese creoles

creole languages of India

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 22, 2026
Entity authorityQ6025550 ↗
Source-derived summary

Indo-Portuguese creoles are the several Portuguese creoles spoken in the former settlements of Portuguese India, including those in Kerala, Bombay, Korlai, Bassein, Goa, Daman and Diu, the Bengal Delta, Portuguese Ceylon, etc; in present-day India and Sri Lanka. These creoles are now mostly extinct or endangered. They have substantial Portuguese words in their grammars or lexicons:

Ceylon Portuguese creole (Sri Lanka)

Daman and Diu Portuguese creole

Kristi language (Chaul/Korlai Portuguese creole)

Norteiro creole (Bassein) †

Bombay Portuguese creole †

Goa Portuguese creole †

Korlai Portuguese

Cochin Portuguese creole †

Cannanore Portuguese creole

Bengali Portuguese creole †

The expression Indo-Portuguese may refer not only to the creoles but also to the creole people groups of Luso-Indians and Portuguese Burghers, who spoke them on the Indian subcontinent.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Indo-Portuguese creoles” as creole languages of India. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Indo-Portuguese, creoles and creole.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current 125-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Indo-Portuguese, creoles and creole providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Indo-Portuguese creoles”, the useful work is to connect “creole languages of India” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6025550. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Indo-Portuguese creoles”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Indo-Portuguese creoles primary sources, Indo-Portuguese creoles archive and Indo-Portuguese research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Indo-Portuguese creoles” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.