Introduction to the Patuá
by “Riri” d’Assumpção
from unpublished Anecdotes from Old Macau.
Personal Pronouns
English
Portuguese
Patuá
Tenses
Tenses were generated simply with a prefix: for the past tense, ja from the Portuguese word já = already; for the present tense, ta (short for Portuguese está); and for the future tense, logo (from the Portuguese logo = “soon”, but pronounced more like the English word “logo”).
Thus from vai = go we have ta vai = going, ja vai = went or gone, and logo vai = will go.
(There is a similarity to the use of a suffix in Cantonese to denote tenses: choh, kun and wui for the past, present and future tenses respectively, but I have no idea whether the evolution of grammar in the patuá was influenced in any way by the Cantonese dialect.)
Pronunciation
In Macanese the letter “R”, at the end of most Portuguese verbs, is never pronounced (probably because of its difficulty for many Asians). Thus the verbs “abrir” (to open), “comer” (to eat) and “dormir” (to sleep) are pronounced as “abri”. “comeh” and “dormi” respectively, with the emphasis (always?) on the last syllable.
A feature of the patuá is that it is delivered in a sing-song voice but, unlike the Chinese dialects, the patuá does not rely on tonality to convey meaning. The accented syllable(s) are always delivered at a higher pitch.
Thus chuchu (to poke or prod) is never pronouced in a flat monotone as in “choo-choo train” in English but has its second syllable delivered some 4 or 5 semitones above the first or, with heightened animation, up to 8 semitones.
Chuchumeca (busybody, stickybeak) has the first two syllables at the same lower pitch and the third and fourth at a higher pitch.
Grammar
The patuá was used as the lingua franca of trade in the Far East and had a small vocabulary and rudimentary grammar and syntax. There was no distinction between adjectives and adverbs (anticipating by a couple of centuries an unfortunate trend in some countries in the usage of English today); thus vagar denotes both slow and slowly. Repetition was used for plurals and superlatives: the plural of filho (son), for example, is filho filho; very slowly is vagar vagar.
Spelling
The patuá was only spoken so there is no consistency in spelling; apart from minor differences in pronunciation, people tend to use spell phonetically according to the principal language in which they received education. Thus people from Macau might spell the famous Macanese dish minchi while those from Hong Kong might spell it minchy.