Malabar-Sri Lanka Portuguese

Conjugate Verbs

Facts

More information:

    Introduction

    Malabar-Sri Lanka Portuguese is a language of Eurasia. The usage status of it is nearly extinct

    Sri Lanka Portuguese is spoken by a dwindling number of the island’s Burgher ethnic group, descendants of unions between (primarily) Portuguese and Dutch men and local women. The two areas where a few speakers may be found are the east coast towns of Batticaloa and Trincomalee.

    The Malabar-Sri Lanka Portuguese Verb

    The tense, mood, and aspect categories of Sri Lanka Portuguese largely mirror those of the local languages. Dravidian (or Dravidian-like) influence has also decoupled the positive and negative systems to some extent, so that there is not always a one-to-one correspondence between positive and negative forms.

    The core of the positive system has three tense-marking prefixes (present, past, future) and one aspectual prefix (perfective); the Batticaloa dialect adds a second aspectual prefix (habitual).

    Notes

    References