Festa

di Papia Kristang
First Kristang Language
Festival in Singapore
SAMPLE NEWS ARTICLE
BY JOANNE MUK RUI YI
Headline: 500-year-old dying language receives revitalisation efforts

Standfirst: First ever Kristang language festival concludes first phase of 30-year plan

By Joanne Muk

Story:

With fewer than 100 Kristang speakers left in Singapore, the Kristang revitalisation team hopes

to strengthen the endangered language by 2045.

Kristang, a Portuguese-Eurasian language, is a mixture of mostly Portuguese vocabulary and

Malay grammar, with inputs from other languages like Dutch, Hakka and more. As Portuguese

settlers married Malacca locals, the language and the culture came as a package.

Mr Kevin Martens Wong, director of Festa di Papia Kristang (Kristang language festival) and

his team devised a five-phase plan, spanning across 30 years, which includes Kristang language

classes and the language festival as the first phase to raise awareness. with Mr Wong said the

first phase was very successful as 300 people had attended the language classes and 1,160

registered for the festival.

The Kristang language festival, which took place over May 20 and 21, had programmes

ranging from panel discussions to Kristang culinary and dance exposure and even to a Kristang

board game made for the festival.

The Eurasian food workshop was one of the most popular programmes, with the room nearly

packed to the brim from participants who watched the host prepare Eurasian cuisine, which

they tasted soon after. The host, Mary Gomes, is a proud owner of two published cookbooks

and an eatery.

Another mentionable highlight of the festival would be the panel discussion on the future of

Kristang, featuring Sara Santa Maria, a Kristang teacher, Elisabela Larrea a researcher of

Macanese Creole theatre and director Mr Wong. Ms Maria and Ms Larrea shared that the best

way to teach children, about a language to sustain it through generations, would be through

cultural ethics such as table manners and eating or participating in recreational activities

together. Mr Wong then added that children only pick up a language if it is not pushed on

them.

The festival attendees also wanted to see Kristang revived again. Esther Leong, 29, said that

as long as the language has some (official) status given in Singapore, it would be satisfactory.

However, she does not believe that Kristang will play a part in the Singaporean identity as it

would need to be recognised officially by having it in students textbooks.

In continuation with the five-phase preservation plan, the other four phases consist of furthering

their Kristang classes which will cater more for children, creating curricula to train future

Kristang teachers and eventually, building courses targeting primary and secondary school

students, which are not to be part of the Singapore school system due to unwanted political

complications, of registering it as an examinable language, that may arise, said Mr Wong.

To sustain Kristang, Mr Wong said, We need people to keep coming forward to, to be

interested in working with the language and to help the community.