We document a critically endangered language—Sri Lanka Portuguese (SLP)—among Afrodescent communities in north-western Sri Lanka. In particular, we focus on documenting and analysing manja, the only remaining expression of African heritage for these communities; in the words of the speakers themselves, “Poverty is our plight and manja is our only inheritance.” We strive to give visibility to their only inheritance through careful documentation that combines state-of-the-art theorising with the ethnographic method.

We are a multilingual, multicultural, and multiracial research team documenting Sri Lanka Portuguese, a critically endangered language spoken among Afrodescendant communities in north-western Sri Lanka.

With UKRI funding, our project focuses on manja, the only surviving expression of African heritage for these communities. By combining language documentation, analysis, and historical reconstruction, we study language change and contact while helping communities recover, preserve, and share their linguistic history.