Gender and language use in Macau, 16th – 19th century

This contribution traces the impact of gender (roles) in the dynamics of language genesis and shift in Macau, focusing on the city’s creole community. The hypothesis on which I elaborate is that most Asian, African, and Eurasian women living in the Portuguese-ruled part of Macau from the 16th to the 19th century found themselves in a social position that was out of the norm – a fact reflected in their language use. During this period, these women’s access to normative language use was systematically impeded by factors such as gender and ethnic origin. Considering these factors, I reconstruct the interrelatedness of speakers’ social position and communicative behaviour. To this end, I analyse metalinguistic data, such as glottonyms, metalinguistic statements, and descriptions of diverse types of speakers. I mostly rely on Portuguese and Macau Creole texts (henceforth: Maquista), which I approach within a framework informed by linguistic anthropology and historical sociolinguistics, with special regard to gender.