Diu

"On the southern tip of the Saurashtra peninsula of Gujarat (India) and commanding a strategic lookout over the Arabian sea, the small island of Diu has aroused seemingly disproportionate colonial interests throughout its history. Among the various effects of its long domination by faraway Portugal (1535-1961) was the formation of a local variety of Indo-Portuguese, a contact language resulting from the encounter of various linguistic influences, chief among which Gujarati and Portuguese. Although the Portuguese-lexified creoles of Asia have deserved scholarly attention from the late 19th-century, the trend towards accurate linguistic description of these languages is a recent one.

This study provides a linguistic account of present-day Diu Indo-Portuguese, duly embedded in its reconstructed historical and sociodemographic context, with the intention to contribute to our burgeoning understanding of the formation, development and present vitality of the contact languages of (South) Asia and elsewhere."

EN. The Portuguese fortress of Diu was besieged by the sultanate of Gujarat between April and November 1546, eight years after the first siege by this same forces helped with an Ottoman reinforcement. The enemy artillery swept successively the walls, leaving the fort in need of repair. The reconstruction of the fortress (as the new type of trace italienne) lasted from November 1546 to April of the following year, creating a structure that finally secured the Portuguese presence in the region. This article has two aims: firstly, the analysis of the costs of the works, such as payments of the supplies and the service conducted by masons, hackers, carpenters and other workers hired by the Crown, and secondly an assessment of the means used to finance these costs. The discussion is based not only on the various chronicles relating to that period, but especially in a list of expenses in the Codex 51-VII-19 of the Biblioteca da Ajuda, containing certificates, lists of payments and, not least, the Caderno das despesas que se fizeram em obras na fortaleza de Diu, dated July 1547 and here published. A final analysis shows that the expenses were not significant in the whole of the budget of the Portuguese State of India. The paper concludes that the expenditures were not significant on the whole of the financial structure of the Portuguese "State of India"."

PT. Entre Abril e Novembro de 1546, a fortaleza portuguesa de Diu sofreu um forte cerco às mãos do sultanato do Guzerate, oito anos após ter sido cercada pela primeira vez pelas mesmas forças apoiadas por um contingente otomano. A artilharia inimiga arrasou sucessivamente as muralhas, deixando o forte num estado tal que impedia o seu simples restauro. A reconstrução desta fortaleza (conforme o novo tipo de fortificação abaluartada) estendeu-se de Novembro de 1546 a Abril do ano seguinte, criando o bastião que finalmente firmaria a presença portuguesa na região. Este artigo pretende analisar, num primeiro momento, as despesas efectuadas com as obras, como sejam os pagamentos dos mantimentos e do serviço levado a cabo por pedreiros, cabouqueiros, carpinteiros e outros trabalhadores contratados pela Coroa para esse fim, e, numa segunda fase, os meios usados para financiar estes custos. Baseamos o nosso discurso não apenas nas diversas crónicas respeitantes a esse período, mas sobretudo nos registos das despesas efectuadas conservados no Códice 51-VII-19 da Biblioteca da Ajuda, contendo certidões, listas de pagamentos e, não menos importante, o caderno das despesas que se fizeram em obras na fortaleza de Diu, datado de Julho de 1547 e aqui publicado na íntegra. Este estudo pretende demonstrar que os custos tidos em conta não pesaram na estrutura financeira do Estado da Índia.

The Portuguese representations of the sieges of Diu have been produced over the span of five centuries. My main argument is that, in these texts, Diu served as a pretext to reaffirm the glories of Portugal in Asia during the sixteenth century, as well as to establish an ontological and epistemological distinction between the West and the East. Such representations stem from what Eduardo Lourenço calls ‘Portuguese hyperidentity’, a notion which helps us understand how the discourses about Diu articulate knowledge and power. The relevance of establishing a connection between Edward W. Said’s theory of Orientalism and Lourenço’s viewpoint lies in the fact that both the ‘Western conceptions of the Orient’ and the affirmation of Portuguese identity and belonging participate of what Michel Foucault called the ‘regime of truth’.

Entre as comunidades indo-portuguesas, a cantiga assume ainda hoje lugar de destaque em variadíssimas ocasiões públicas. Canta-se em cerimónias litúrgicas, procissões e festividades religiosas, mas também em festas, casamentos, na recepção a dignitários e sempre que a ocasião exija uma demonstração das singularidades culturais da comunidade. Este estudo explora características linguísticas e temáticas de uma parcela do cancioneiro indo-português, nomeadamente o conjunto de cantigas que sabemos ser ou ter sido de uso corrente entre as comunidades norteiras