Na kaza, greza kung stradu

Kristang is the critically endangered heritage language of the Portuguese-Eurasian community in Singapore. Using newly-identified mentions of Kristang in the Singapore National Library Board’s NewspaperSG digitised collection, I present a preliminary sketch of a hitherto-undocumented and previously poorly understood part of Kristang’s history in Singapore between the 1880s and the late 1920s, demonstrating that, in addition to the use of Kristang in religious functions, there existed a vibrant Kristang theatre scene involving multiple Eurasian theatre troupes performing in Kristang. This in turn has allowed for a more coherent understanding of Kristang’s historical domains of use and the place of the language and speech community in multilingual colonial Singapore, especially in terms of its relationship with the various hybridised theatrical forms developing throughout Southeast Asia in the second half of the nineteenth century, and a revised understanding of Kristang’s history in Singapore overall.