Macanese Patois | |
---|---|
patuá | |
Native to | Macau |
Ethnicity | Macanese |
Native speakers | 50 in Macau (2007)[1] perhaps hundreds or more than a thousand among the Macanese diaspora; virtually all speakers at least bilingual; total speakers: 5,000 (2007; in Macau) |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | mzs |
Glottolog | maca1262 |
ELP | Patuá |
Linguasphere | 51-AAC-ai |
Location map of Macau | |
Patuá is classified as Critically Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger[2] |
Macanese patois (endonym: Patuá) is a Portuguese-based creole language with a substrate from Cantonese, Malay and Sinhala, which was originally spoken by the Macanese community of the Portuguese colony of Macau. It is now spoken by a few families in Macau and in the Macanese diaspora.
UNESCO’s Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger classifies Patua as a "critically endangered" and places the number of speakers at 50 as of 2000[update].[2]
UNESCO endangered
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).