Batticaloa Community
The two communities; Batticaloa and Trincomalliee, were examined in demographical terms by few scholars in remembered history. Bandara (2009, 2011), Nordoff (2011) are some studies that provide a glimpse of the population demographically. However, it is problematic to say that the all speakers of the Burgher community speaks Creole. Same as the natural situation of any Creole community, the Creole Portuguese community in Sri Lanka is also declining its number of true speakers.
Since its beginning the Port Creole is mainly spoken in Batticaloa District and this made us to focus more about the region in comparison with the other speech communities of the Burghers. In past consecutive years the total number of Portuguese Burghers in the region shoes a considerable decline. In 2009, the number of Burghers were 4851 while it was consecutively 4117, 5268, 5292 and 5020 in past years. The national and district based census therefore proves an expected decline of the number of the community in the future. Yet it is still problematic that whether the total number of speakers are typically the true speakers even though the numbers are increased compared to the records of Smith (1978), Jayasooriya (1999). For instance in 1978 Smith records that the number of speakers are approximately 2225 and they are more likely to have at least minimal fluency on Port Creole. But at present the numbers does not represent the actual number of Port Creole speakers and it is also unpredictable due to the absence of a proper study. However the speech group receives a 0.86% of percentage among the total population of the district and this is clearly a positive development of the speech community.
The distribution of the Burghers across the district is mainly according to the Divisional Secretariat divisions. They are scattered in all 24 such divisions of the district. Manmunai North (the city area), Erawur, Koralai Pattu, etc. are some of such division where the Manmunai North receives the majority. In this region that of Dutch Bar, Kallady, and Batticaloa town, the total number of speakers are 4438 and this is 88% of the total Burgher population of the district. This is also similar to the previous records. The Burgher Foundation reports the population is divided in 1700 families in Batticaloa district to form the third majority of the district, which is more than the main stream Sinhala community. In Trincomalliee, number of speakers are less than that of Batticaloa. Nordoff (2012) mentions, there are about 170 families of Portuguese families in the district. Unfortunately there are no state run census program initiated so far to calculate the actual distribution of this communities and neither in Batticaloa.
However, in both districts the considerable loss of the number of the speakers is notable due to the three decades of ethnic conflict and the Tsunami, which changed the social dynamics of these communities drastically. The reasons and current situations will be discussed later in this essay.