Korlai Creole Portuguese

Conjugate Verbs

Facts

More information:

    Introduction

    Korlai Indo-Portuguese is a creole language based on Portuguese, spoken by less than 1,000 Luso-Indian Christians of Korlai in the Raigad District of the Konkan region, in Maharashtra, India. It is located between Goa and Damaon. It has vigorous use and it is also known as Kristi ("Christian"), Korlai Creole Portuguese, Korlai Portuguese, or as Nou Ling by the creole people of Korlai themselves, which literally means "our language".

    The Korlai Creole Portuguese Verb

    From Portuguese Korlai maintains the three formal verb classes (-a, -e, -i, as in kat-a ‘sing’, beb-e ‘drink’, and irg-i ‘get up’), and has added one more (-u, as in tep-u ‘heat up’), which is used to accommodate verbs borrowed from Marathi. Korlai has eight overt, preposed tense-aspect markers (tə (tɛ), ti, lə, tɛd, tid, ay, ater, (ja)), as well as three tense-aspect suffixes (-n, -d, -o (-w)). The preposed markers never combine with each other, but rather combine with the suffixes to express tense and aspect distinctions in Korlai. Zero-marking also plays a part in the Korlai verb system.

    Notes