sium

Possibly from an Afro-Portuguese variant of Portuguese senhor, reduced to *siô, with nasalization taking place by analogy of nhum.^[1] Doublet of nhum, via an older form nhom.

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /sjũ/, [ʃuŋ]

Noun

sium (plural sium-sium, feminine siára)

sir, Mr, Mr.^[2]
Sium Capitám ― Mr Captain
master, boss
husband
Nina azinha têm su sium.
A girl quickly has her husband.

Usage notes

Note the difference in pronunciation of si- between siára (/sj/) and sium (/ʃ/).

Derived terms

sium di botica (“store owner”)

References

^ Batalha, Graciete Nogueira (1988) “sium”, in Glossário do dialecto macaense: notas linguísticas, etnográficas e folclóricas [Glossary of the Macanese dialect: linguistic, ethnographic and folkloric notes], Macau: Instituto Cultural de Macau, page 270
^ https://www.macaneselibrary.org/pub/english/uipatua.htm

[1] Batalha, Graciete Nogueira (1988) “sium”, in Glossário do dialecto macaense: notas linguísticas, etnográficas e folclóricas [Glossary of the Macanese dialect: linguistic, ethnographic and folkloric notes], Macau: Instituto Cultural de Macau, page 270

[2] ttps://www.macaneselibrary.org/pub/english/uipatua.htm

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