Daman and Diu Portuguese Creole

The Daman and Diu Portuguese Creole, Língua Crioula de Damãon e Dio & by its speakers as Língua da Casa meaning "home language", refers to the variety of Indo-Portuguese creole spoken in the Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (Damaon territory), in the northern Konkan region of India. Before the Indian annexation of the territory, the creole spoken by the Damanese natives underwent a profound decreolisation in the erstwhile Portuguese Goa and Damaon colony, a phenomenon whereby the Indo-Portuguese creole reconverged with European Portuguese.

Daman Indo-Portuguese
The Daman creole is a descendant of the Norteiro creole, spoken originally by the Norteiros on the coast from Chaul, Vasai (Bassein), Bombay, to Damaon.

The superstrate language is Portuguese. The substrate of the Daman creole is likely to be Konkani. Gujarati has also been suggested as a possible substrate, but this is doubtful since the Gujarati people moved into the area only after the Portuguese arrived.

Diu Indo-Portuguese
The Diu Indo-Portuguese or Diu Portuguese is spoken in Diu district, India. It is a creole language based mainly on Portuguese and Gujarati. It is a member of the larger family of Indo-Portuguese creoles, particularly close to the variety of Daman. There is a considerably vital oral tradition in this language, with songs regularly performed in Diu, elsewhere in India and among Indo-Portuguese communities abroad.

Widely spoken in the past, it was first documented in the 19th century by the initiative of Hugo Schuchardt. At present, the language is spoken natively by most of the local Catholics, numbering about 180, but is potentially endangered by the pressure of other languages such as Gujarati, English and standard Portuguese.

Number of speakers
The Portuguese heritage in Daman is more common and lively than in Goa and this helped to keep the language alive. The language is spoken by an estimated number of 2,000 Damanese.

Besides the lingua da casa, Gujarati, Portuguese & Konkani are also found in the territory.