by Alfredo Luk

The Macanese, (and the Goanese in India), the descendants of Portuguese pioneer colonials, who intermarried with Asians and Europeans, borrowed, adapted and added many native words to the English language.

Few Englishmen stationed in China in the 18th and 19th centuries felt the need to learn to speak and write Chinese, even though most would spend their careers in China. The exceptions were a few sinologists, missionaries and those who married or consorted with Chinese women. Britain, backed by the most powerful navy in the world, and a well-trained army, would ensure that her treaties with China were maintained. These treaties required that commerce and legal matters were to be in English.

The British (and other foreigners) lived mainly in enclaves or compounds in the Treaty ports, such as the International Settlement in Shanghai, Shameen in Canton, and Kulangsu in Amoy. These colonies were often microcosms of their homeland, reflecting Victorian or Edwardian values; their rigid class system, with exclusive clubs, schools, churches and hospitals, etc. most of which were run by missionaries.

Anti-Western Feelings Deter Learning English
Anti-British (and anti-Western) feelings among the Chinese people were widespread after the Opium War. The Chinese people, humiliated by their defeat at the hands of the British, were disgusted at their own government�s weaknesses against the enemy in yielding to them favorable trade agreements, and extraterritorial privileges. As a consequence, the Chinese regarded anything to do with the British and other Western countries, such as the buying of their products, and learning the English language, as unpatriotic.

The Chinese elite, literati and college students despised those compatriots who used English in their dealings with the British, regarding this as aquiescing and submitting to the enemy. Even under this adverse environment, a few Chinese intellectuals who were under the influence of Western missionaries, managed to master English. Others who learned the language, were the offspring of Chinese who had emigrated to the West.

The British communicated with the natives through their English-speaking compradores, and pidgin English with their servants. Pidgin English was easier to learn as it did away with parts of speech such as tenses and plurals not found in Chinese. Because the foreigners spoke pidgin to domestic servants, coolies, shopkeepers and the like, they generally assumed it was a debased form of English. Not so.
See Pidgin English & Other Pidgins, sidebar.

Filhomacs
As Western firms in 19th century China had to deal with Chinese in business, they saw the need for members of their staffs to communicate with the Chinese besides being fluent in English. Filhomacs, who were multilingual with their knowledge of one or more dialects of Chinese, English, Portuguese or Macanese, and sometimes other languages, ideally fit those positions. Moreover, their familiarity with the Chinese way of conducting business, and their knowledge of local customs and geography, made them indispensable to their British employers.

In describing Chinese terms to their English- speaking partners or employers, the Filhomacs in China would render into phonetics Chinese words, which added and enriched the vocabulary of Asian Colonial English.

Following their predecessors in adopting Portuguese words like Rococco and edifice into the English lexicon, Filhomacs added a substantial number of words of Chinese or Portuguese origin into Asian Colonial English when there was no appropriate word in English. Filhomacs even drew on Indian words.

The author has prepared the following list from a number of sources to demonstrate the breadth of the Portuguese/Goan/Macanese contribution to the English language. It is not easy to determine whether the British or the Portuguese (who passed it on to the Macanese) first adapted Indian words to the English language.

We have to discriminate between those foreign words that were actually those used by Filhomacs (and Goans), and those words which the British borrowed directly from other Indians. We took pains in cross-referencing English and Portuguese dictionaries. This author has also solicited help from some of his Indian friends in order to exhaust his sources in deriving at the origins of words which were qualified to be on the list.

Remember that the Portuguese acquired Goa in 1510, while the British came to India some 250 years later. The Portuguese arrived in China in the early 1520s while the British started to trade in Macau and Canton much later in the 1700s, so the chances are that the Portuguese and Macanese acquired some knowledge of Chinese much earlier. Only with an etymological determination of individual words can we be sure of their origins.

Take for example, the word, ketchup. Or is it ketchup, catsup, catchup, or kitchup? Since the word derives from the Amoy dialect ket -tsiap, �pickled fish-brine or sauce,� which became Malay kechap, the first spelling is perhaps the best. The original condiment the Dutch traders imported from the Orient appears to have been either a fish sauce similar to the Roman garum, or a sauce made from special mushrooms salted for preservation. Englishmen added a �t� to the Malay word, changed the �a� to �u� and began making ketchup themselves, using such ingredients like mushrooms, walnuts, cu cumbers, and oysters. It wasn�t until American seamen added tomatoes from Mexico or the Spanish West Indies to the condiment that tomato ketchup was born. But the spelling and pronunciation �catsup� have strong literary precedents, as witness this quote from Dean Swift:

�And for our home-bred British cheer,/Botargo [fish roe relish], catsup and cabiar {caviar].� (1730).

�Catchup� has an earlier citation (1690) than either of the other spellings, predating ketchup by some twenty years. Ketjap, the Dutch word for sauce, and kitchup have been used in English. anyway, a red tide of half a billion bottles of ketchup, catsup, catchup, or kitchup is slopped on everything from Big Macs to vanilla ice cream(!) in America each year � [from the Encyclopedia of Word & Phrase Origins, by Robert Hendrickson, (1987)]

Some Words of Chinese Origin:
• Kowtow: Means following order without question or acknowledging full submission; literally means �lowering one's forehead to the ground.�
• Sampan: A small Chinese boat.
• Satay also sat�: Small pieces of barbecued meats or seafood on bamboo skewers with a delectable spicy peanut sauce originating from Fukien, and taken by immigrants to Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. Satay means �three pieces� in Fukienese, as three pieces of meat are usually threaded through bamboo sticks.
• Taipan: Literally �big executive� in Cantonese, the head of a commercial firm.
• Tycoon: Literally �big officer� the high government official.
• Typhoon: Hurricane. derived from Chinese, tai-fung literally �big wind;� first borrowed by 16th century Portuguese as tuf�o, and later adopted by the English.

Some Words of Portuguese Origin:
• Amah: means maid or female house servant. It derived from the Portuguese, ama which means �nurse� or �governess.�
• Banana: The Portuguese had the right to be the first to claim the use of this word. After all, it was the Portuguese who reached Africa and Brazil first and encountered this fruit.
• Bamboo: From the Malay bambu, via the Portuguese, mambu, which equivalent is bambu.
• Cargo: Derived from the Portuguese, carga, meaning �load.�
• Carrack A type of 16th century Portuguese ship which was smaller than a galleon.
• Cash: Use of real money. A corrupted form of the Portuguese, caixa, meaning �box.� This is an excellent example of the substitute of a foreign word for the lack of a suitable word in English.
• Caste: Social rank in society, particularly Indian society. This may come as a surprise to many including the author that it was borrowed from the Portuguese word casta meaning �case.�
• Cocoa: Drink or powder from the seed of the cacao which is Portuguese for cocoa.
• Corridor: Hallway; from the Portuguese, corre meaning �run.�
• Compradore: Purchasing agent derived from the Portuguese comprar meaning �to buy.�
• Cork: A corrupted form of the Portuguese cork wood tree called cortica.
• Corps: A military body possibly derived from the Portuguese word corpo which means �body.�
• Godown: Warehouse, typically at the waterfront. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) traces its late 16th cent. origins to Portuguese gud�o, the Tamil, kitanku kitannu, and Malayalam, Malay gedong.
• Joss as in joss sticks. In the 16th century, the Chinese attempted to imitate the pronunciation of the word Deus which in the Portuguese means �God� or �Sage� but resulted in �joss.�
• Junk: A Chinese sailing vessel � from the Portuguese junco, also French junque, Dutch jonk, from Malay, jong.
• Lacquer: A varnish. Word adopted from the Portuguese, laca.
• Lorcha, also lorch: A fast sailing ship with Portuguese hull and Chinese rig. It definitely is a good case of Macanese invention.
• Mandarin: Chinese official. The Portuguese described Manchurian officials as persons who were �sent out� (mandar-le) from the imperial court. The Portuguese equivalent would be Mandarim possibly from the Malay/Malaccan mantri.
• Mango: Tropical fruit derived from the Portuguese word manga.
• Pagoda: A Buddhist or Hindu idol-temple often multi-storied. From the Portuguese, pagode, but possibly from the Persian, butkada from but, idol + kada, habitation.
• Praya or praia: from the Portuguese praia meaning �beach, seashore, strand, or coast..� Praya is a variation of praia.
• Saavy: knowledge. Adopted from the Portuguese saber, meaning �to know.�
• Tank: Storage vessel for liquid. Adopted from the Portuguese, tanque meaning �pond� Possibly from Gujarati taku, Marathi, take, �underground cistern.�
• Verandah: Approximation of the Portuguese, varanda, which means �balcony.�
• Vista: n. meaning view or Panoramic view, was borrowed from the Portuguese word vista with exactly the same meaning.

Some Words of Indian Origin:
• Coolie also cooly: A (non-European) hired laborer or burden carrier in India, China and elsewhere. From the Hindi and Telegu, kuli meaning �day-laborer;� Tamil, Telegu, and Kuli meaning �hire,� and Urdu, kuli, meaning �slave.�
• Congee also conjee: Rice soup. The Oxford English Dictionary dates the word from the late 17th century from the Tamil. Canja is the Portuguese word.
• Monsoon: Borrowed from Arabic word, mausin meaning �seasonal wind.�
• Nullah: A deep, (stone or concrete lined) ditch or drainage channel. From the Hindi, late 18th. cent. Term used mainly in India and the Far East.
• Raja: meaning �leader or prince,� originating from India, used in Malaysia, Singapore and Borneo. Also found in Portuguese dictionaries. Known to Asian Portuguese as rajah.
• Tamarind: Tree and fruit native to India. Name from the Hindi, tamarhindi. Known as tamarino to the Portuguese.
• Tangerine: Similar to Mandarin orange, known by the Portuguese as tangerina.
• Tiffin: Indian word meaning �lunch� or �light refreshment.� Used also in the Far East.
• Shroff: A cashier or money changer in India; term derives from the Arabic, saraf for exchange (money).