Standard Hindi itself has some characteristics of a creole; at the very least it has had both grammatical and vocabulary influences from a number of languages, including Punjabi, Persian, Portuguese and English.
I knew or could guess about influences from the other three, but didn't really know about influences from Portuguese - interesting. Got any examples? Only one I can think of right now is kaju in Hindi for cashew, which I think may be from Portuguese because I think I've read the Portuguese brought the cashew tree to India [1]. Okay, pao or pav [2] for a particular kind of bread in Mumbai and Maharashtra may be another one. I know that bread is called pan and similar words in some European languages, and many Portuguese words end in "o" or "ao".
Just looked it up in Google Translate, pão is Portuguese for bread:
Another example is "vindaloo", from "vinho d'alho" ('garlic wine').
Over in Japan, "tempura" is from a Latin reference to the holiday of Lent, as used by Portuguese people in Japan. (At that time the Catholic Portuguese would eat fried fish or fried vegetables.)
Oh yes, good ones, thanks. I knew about both of those, but had forgotten. Knew about vindaloo from both reading [1] about it and eating it, and about tempura just from reading.
Tempura sounds like our Indian bhajji [2], but with many other fillings; must try it out some time.
I've been to Goa, which is one place the Portuguese had a colony in India, and have had vindaloo - both the authentic and non-authentic kinds. The authentic kind at Goan-run restaurants in Goa, and the unauthentic kind at non-Goan run restaurants (also in Goa). What makes it unauthentic (although not necessarily bad in taste) is that they add potato to the dish, probably based on the wrong understanding that the "aloo" part of the dish name means it should have potato in it (aloo means potato in Hindi). I've read that some "Indian" restaurants in the UK do the same too.
>Restaurants outside Goa serve vindaloo with chicken or lamb, which is sometimes mixed with cubed potatoes. Even though the word aloo (आलू) means potato in Hindi,[5](as the name is a corruption of a Portuguese phrase with no Hindi etymology) traditional vindaloo does not include potatoes.
>Vindaloo served in restaurants of the United Kingdom differs from the original vindaloo dish; it is simply a spicier version of the standard "medium (spiciness)" restaurant curry with the addition of vinegar, potatoes and chili peppers.
Not Persian? I was under the impression that Hindi is Aryan as a result of the Persian invasion of the Indian subcontinent, which also resulted in the Dravidian languages being pushed south.
There weren't really any major 'Persian' invasions of India. The closest would be the Mughal invasions (the Mughals being Persianised Turco-Mongols), which were relatively recent, in the history of India (16th century A.D.)
There are claims of earlier 'Aryan invasions' of India (nothing to do with Persians), meaning essentially an invasion of Sanskrit speakers into India, though to what degree these migrations were 'invasions' in any sense is unclear.
It is also unclear whether migrations/invasions of these Sanskrit speakers displaced Dravidian speakers. It is clear that both Sanskrit/Indo-Aryan speakers and Dravidian speakers partially displaced earlier Austro-Asiatic (Munda) speakers, who themselves seemed to have displaced yet earlier populations.
The commonly accepted view right now is that there was an Aryan migration and not an invasion over the Indian subcontinent. But there are politically motivated narratives abound that are pushing this theory to either extremes (Aryan immigration theory vs Aryan == Dravidian theory). Please don't trigger a flame war. It is surprising as it is that this topic hasn't triggered one yet.
