This dictionary is powered by the Open Kristang Wordnet
alongside the Princeton Wordnet. More information
about what is a Wordnet can be found here.
The Open Kristang Wordnet is also linked to multiple other languages through the Open Multilingual Wordnet (OMW). Through the OMW, you can access to multiple wordnets in a variety of languages, all linked through the Collaborative
Interlingual Index (CILI). If you're interested in downloading the data for this or other wordnets, or are looking into making
use of our restful API, please use the OMW.
[coming soon]
The Pinchah Kristang: A Dictionary of Kristang was developed within the context of Kodrah Kristang (“Awaken, Kristang”), a youth-led intergenerational multi-ethnic community initiative to revitalise the critically endangered Singaporean language Kristang, today spoken by less than 100 mostly elderly speakers.
Before 2016, Kristang stood on the point of extinction, with no children learning it, and minimal public awareness of Kristang’s very existence -- even among its heritage community, the Portuguese-Eurasians. In the space of just over a year, the Kodrah Kristang core team --- Fuad Johari, Frances Loke Wei, Luís Morgado da Costa, Andre D’Rozario, Anirudh Krishnan and director Kevin Martens Wong --- have taught the language to more than 300 new Singaporean learners, and promoted Kristang’s existence to more than 69 million people worldwide through materials and activities for the revitalisation of Kristang all on an entirely voluntary basis and out of love for the remaining Kristang speakers, including adult classes, children’s classes, articles, talks, this online dictionary, a revitalisation plan and teacher training plan for long-term sustainability, a poetry competition, the first-ever Kristang Language Festival attended by more than 1,200 people, and the first ever professionally-developed Kristang board game.
Working with 16 remaining Singaporean Kristang speakers, the team’s inclusivity and initiative have rallied not just the Portuguese-Eurasian community but many Singaporeans to the preservation of Kristang, and have been recognised by Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean, and Minister representing the Eurasians in Parliament S. Iswaran, the BBC and The Straits Times, and Singapore’s National Heritage Board, National Library, Eurasian Association and National Youth Council, which have supported the initiative financially.
This dictionary is also showcasing the efforts of an initiative known as Jardinggu, or Kristang Lexical Incubator, provides a space for the discussion and accelerated addition of new words into the Kristang lexicon.
The Kodrah Kristang team seeks to encourage more young people to learn and speak Kristang. Many young people, however, don’t see the value in learning a language that is not ready for the modern age, and lacks words for concepts that are important today, like “website”, “democracy” and “wifi”. This project provides space and language workers fluent in Kristang who are committed to seeing the language preserved for a new generation. Other previously dying languages like Hawaiian also formed incubators that created thousands of new words; today, Hawaiian lives again. We hope that with the work of the Jardinggu, Kristang will too!
Words that are proposed by this Incubator project are added to the dictionary with a temporary status. These words are then presented to the community, who decides, based on usage, what words remain in the language. Words that are not accepted/used by the community will be taken out of the dictionary or substituted by words in usage.
Every two months, the Incubator team convenes to discuss the proposed new words. Anyone is welcome to join this meeting and make their voice heard. And all participants of these meetings will be listed under this project's contributors list.
Many people have contributed to this project. Ultimately, this was a project for and by the Kristang community (and their friends).
And the current state of the dictionary would not have been possible without the volunteered hours of many who dedicated their time
to this project. If you also want to be a part of this project, please contact me using the email below.
Here is the list of names of have helped make Pinchah Kristang: A Dictionary of Kristang a reality:
| Aliah Aman Aljunied | Andre D'Rozario | Anirudh Krishan | Bernard Mesenas | Bernice Minjoot | Brenda Pereira | Cara Leong |
| Cheryl Lim | Cláudia Guerreiro | Darren Mak | David Leong | Deborah Chiang | Eleanor Thomas | Frances Loke Wei |
| Fuad Johari | Gerald Choa | Hannah Choi | Joy Aroozoo Olsen | Keely New | Kerry Pereira | Kevin Martens Wong |
| Kevin Michael Sim | Lauren Koh | Martha Fernandez | Mary Thomas | Megan Yeo | Michael (Mitcho) Erlewine | Ng Yue Ning |
| Olive Edema | Petrina Edema | Sharmala Jacquelyn Solomon | Victoria Elizabeth Scully |
We want to encourage people to use our work for the futher improvement of the Kristang community, language and culture.
For this reason, all work developed for Pinchah Kristang: A Dictionary of Kristang and the
Open Kristang Wordnet are developed uder a
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
(CC BY 4.0) license.
Under this license you are free to:
Under the following terms of: