This was supported by Portuguese officials who advocated mixed marriages in the face of a labour shortage in the colonies, leading to the very first native speakers of Kristang as well as the development of the creole.

The Irmang di Greza (Brothers of the Church), a manifestation of the bond between language and religion in the Kristang culture, acted as an intermediary between the priest and the remnants of the Portuguese population despite prohibition by the Dutch.

Liturgy and pastoral sessions were conducted in Kristang in Malacca, which contributed to the longevity of the language into a period as late as the 20th century.

The ceding of Malacca by the Dutch to the British via the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 directly caused the decline of the Kristang language.

By the mid 19th century, many Kristangs flocked towards clerical and auxiliary positions provided by their new colonial masters.

In addition, the rising affluence of the region meant more job opportunities, resulting in many Kristangs moving away from Malacca.

The upkeep of Kristang can largely be attributed to its connection with the dominant religion of the Portuguese and their relative social standing in their communities between the 1600s to the late 1800s.

Eventually, the bond between Kristang and religion was severed due to the association of the Portuguese Mission with the St Xavier's Church.

[8] Migration overseas and intermarriage with other nationalities have also led to Kristang speakers leaving the Portuguese Settlement in order to live and work in other parts of Malaysia.

[9] There has been an apparent language shift to English and Bahasa Malaysia due to the reduced prestige and accessibility of Kristang.

The Kristang-speaking community located at the Portuguese Settlement, or Padri sa Chang (“The Priest’s Land”) was able to undertake more sustained revitalisation efforts and publicise itself to non-Eurasian Malaysians, and the language.

Notably with texts, stories and phrasebooks in Kristang produced by Joan Margaret Marbeck and through investments and interest from individuals and organisations outside the community.

Joan Marbeck has produced three publications: Ungu Adanza (An Inheritance), Linggu Mai (Mother Tongue) and the Kristang Phrasebook.

Support was also received from the Lisbon-based Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, which funded and published Marbeck's Kristang text.

[11] Along with Malacca Portuguese-Eurasian Association (MPEA) president Michael Gerald Singho, they published a textbook, Beng Prende Portugues Malaká (Papiá Cristang), also known as Come, Let's Learn Portugues Malaká (Papiá Cristang) for people who want to learn Kristang.

As it is primarily a creole, much of its vocabulary is also derived from Chinese, Indian and Malay languages to varying degrees.

In general, Kristang's inventory of consonant and vowel phonemes shows a significant parallel to that of Standard Malay.

No clear distinctions between voiced-voiceless pairs and all fricative counterparts can be drawn as /v/ is highly infrequent and restricted in distribution and initial /z/ has fallen into disuse.

Of all 10, 3 (/ai/ as in rainya ‘queen’, /ua/ as in chua ‘rain’ and /ia/ as in dia ‘day’) may also constitute hiatus, i.e. the vowels in would be pronounced as two distinct syllables in certain environments.

Instead, it makes use of pre-verbal words to convey tense and does not indicate the person or number of the subject in the form of the verb.

For complex sentences, the phrases and clauses are joined by coordinating conjunctions ku "with, and", kě "or", and mas "but".

There are also instances where object clauses may be headed by ki; however, this is rare and is only found in traditional formal registers, as in a wedding speech.

'Adverbial clauses are headed by antis di "before", kiora "when", chuma "as", kantu "if", padi "in order to", kauzu ki "because", kifoi "because", etc., yet may also be indicated by parataxis without conjunctions.

There are five types of prenominal determiners in Kristang: Quantifier: kadaeachkazahousekada kazaeach house'Each house’.Numeral: dostwoprauboatdos prautwo boat'Two boats’.Interrogative determiner: kíRELredinet?Qkí redi ?REL net Q'What net?’Demonstrative article: akéDEMalbitreeaké albiDEM tree'That tree.’The demonstratives isi and ake(li) ‘that’ precede the noun and indicate a distance contrast.

In comparative constructions of equality, the adjective is marked by iguál ‘equal’ and standard is marked by ku ‘with’: JohnJohniguálequalgrandibigkuwithPeter.PeterJohn iguál grandi ku Peter.John equal big with Peter'John is as big as Peter.’In the comparative construction of inequality, the adjective is marked by más ‘more’ and the standard by di ‘of’: Eli3SGmásmorealtutalldiofPio.PioEli más altu di Pio.3SG more tall of Pio'He is taller than Pio.’The superlative comparison consists of the comparative of inequality plus a universal standard: MariaMariamásmorealtutalldioftuduallmbesonceakéDEMfemifemalefemi.femmaleMaria más altu di tudu mbes aké femi femi.Maria more tall of all once DEM female femmale'Maria is the tallest of all the girls.’There is only one set of personal pronouns that occurs in all pronominal functions.

However, unlike Portuguese, which distinguishes between the masculine and feminine forms of “one” (um/uma) and “two” (dois/duas), numbers in Kristang do not inflect for gender.

A peculiarity of the language is the pronoun yo (meaning "I") which is used in Northern Portuguese (pronounced as yeu), as well as Spanish and Italian/Sicilian.