AHC: Portuguese-Hawaiian Creole

[Angel Blaise]

With any POD, make it so that a creole forms between Portuguese and Hawaiian on the Hawaiian islands.

How might this language look? Maybe something like Papiamentu, but with Hawaiian influence instead of Dutch, and influence from East Asian languages like Japanese and Mandarin?

How would the phonologies of Hawaiian and Portuguese interact in forming a creole?

 

[St. Just]

Give Portugal something on the Pacific coast, preferably Mexico, and have them discover Hawaii via the North Pacific current. Then, have them establish an outpost and control the place.

Of course, the native Hawaiians might die too quickly, but if enough of them survive and use broken Portuguese as a liturgical language, then a creole will form just as in most of Portugal's territories.

 

[Revachah]

Portuguese was incorporated into Pidgin by Azorean, Madierian and Verdean plantation middlemen.

The earliest Portuguese presence on the island were Cape Verdean sailors who quickly assimilated. By having them form a caste of ship builders for Hawaiian elites arguably a caste based Creole could develop. It could be like blacksmith languages in West Africa and the Sahara.

 

[Fenrir_Angerboda]

If you get technical, Portuguese is one of the languages that went into the creation of Hawaiian Pidgin.

the way the word "Stay" is used for temporary states/location is influenced by the Portuguese word ficar/estar.

So when we say "The dog stay over there", or "The book stay under da table", it's showing off the Portuguese influences.

if you mean a more straight up Portuguese-Hawaiian only pidgin, that gets trickier.
I mean, you gotta first figure out how Portugal gets Hawaii first, since it seems to be outside of Portugal's stomping ground.

 

[Angel Blaise]

Portuguese was incorporated into Pidgin by Azorean, Madierian and Verdean plantation middlemen.

The earliest Portuguese presence on the island were Cape Verdean sailors who quickly assimilated. By having them form a caste of ship builders for Hawaiian elites arguably a caste based Creole could develop. It could be like blacksmith languages in West Africa and the Sahara.

Is there anyway in such a situation that the sailors could gain enough sway to have their Creole widely spoken in the islands? Maybe a situation where the Creole is a co-official language along with Hawaiian and English in an independent Hawaii?

 

[Fenrir_Angerboda]

Is there anyway in such a situation that the sailors could gain enough sway to have their Creole widely spoken in the islands? Maybe a situation where the Creole is a co-official language along with Hawaiian and English in an independent Hawaii?

You'd have to keep them from bringing in the Japanese/Chinese/Puerto Rican/Korean/Filipino plantation workers.

The Azores Portuguese were some of the earlier workers brought into Hawaii (started in 1878), but the Chinese had been coming in since the 1850s.

For what you're asking, the Portuguese would have to discover the Islands.

 

[Angel Blaise]

Give Portugal something on the Pacific coast, preferably Mexico, and have them discover Hawaii via the North Pacific current.

For what you're asking, the Portuguese would have to discover the Islands.

I don't suppose Portuguese Hawaii could happen without Portuguese Mexico? What other ways could Portugal get to Hawaii? Due to the way the New World was divided between Spain and Portugal, it seems Spain pretty much owned the Pacific coasts of North and South America, at least in theory. Is there a way Portugal could have obtained a Pacific coast somehow anyway?

 

[Fenrir_Angerboda]

I don't suppose Portuguese Hawaii could happen without Portuguese Mexico? What other ways could Portugal get to Hawaii? Due to the way the New World was divided between Spain and Portugal, it seems Spain pretty much owned the Pacific coasts of North and South America, at least in theory. Is there a way Portugal could have obtained a Pacific coast somehow anyway?

You'd probably have to mess with the Treaty of Tordesillas.

 

[Tanc49]

I don't suppose Portuguese Hawaii could happen without Portuguese Mexico? What other ways could Portugal get to Hawaii? Due to the way the New World was divided between Spain and Portugal, it seems Spain pretty much owned the Pacific coasts of North and South America, at least in theory. Is there a way Portugal could have obtained a Pacific coast somehow anyway?

Spain and Portugal were unified at some points though, and Portuguese Jewish merchants ("converted") were a big force in the Americas.

One could imagine some sort of Portuguese led venture from one of these merchants, trading with the islands.

 

[Angel Blaise]

Spain and Portugal were unified at some points though, and Portuguese Jewish merchants ("converted") were a big force in the Americas.

One could imagine some sort of Portuguese led venture from one of these merchants, trading with the islands.

So perhaps have Spain discover the islands early, while the Iberian Union is still in effect. The Spanish use it as a stopover between New Spain and the Philippines, and the Portuguese merchants set up shop. After the Iberian union falls apart, enough Portuguese merchants have settled on the islands for the Creole to take hold. Would something like this be feasible? Come to think of it, this would lead to Spanish influence as well, perhaps making the language look more like Papiamentu than I thought.

Or would the merchants be able to discover the islands on their own, sending trading ships from the New World which end up discovering the islands?

 

[Angel Blaise]

How likely would the Creole be to retain nasalized vowels? If it lost nasalized vowels, would the nasal palatal approximant nh /j̃/ denasalize into a regular palatal approximant /j/ (like y in English "yes")? How might the spelling change to reflect this?

 

[Karolus Rex]

So perhaps have Spain discover the islands early, while the Iberian Union is still in effect. The Spanish use it as a stopover between New Spain and the Philippines, and the Portuguese merchants set up shop. After the Iberian union falls apart, enough Portuguese merchants have settled on the islands for the Creole to take hold. Would something like this be feasible? Come to think of it, this would lead to Spanish influence as well, perhaps making the language look more like Papiamentu than I thought.

Or would the merchants be able to discover the islands on their own, sending trading ships from the New World which end up discovering the islands?

Very hard to achieve because the only trade routes in which the Portuguese merchants were involved with Spain was Europe-Africa-America-Europe. On Asia we had our own routes and, I think that, none of them included the Americas.

 

[Angel Blaise]

Very hard to achieve because the only trade routes in which the Portuguese merchants were involved with Spain was Europe-Africa-America-Europe. On Asia we had our own routes and, I think that, none of them included the Americas.

I don't suppose the OTL Portuguese routes took them anywhere near Hawaii? What about other Polynesian islands? Could Portuguese have formed a Creole with a different Polynesian language?

 

[Karolus Rex]

I don't suppose the OTL Portuguese routes took them anywhere near Hawaii? What about other Polynesian islands? Could Portuguese have formed a Creole with a different Polynesian language?

Only the Spanish crossed the Pacific to go to Asia. It was easier for us to go around Africa, where we had several ports under our control, than to go around South America and then cross the Pacific.

Our trade interests were in the Indian Ocean, with East Asia being a interest but we had limited resources.