tancá

See also: tanca

Macanese

Alternative forms

• (hypercorrection) tancar

Etymology

Borrowed from Cantonese 蜑家 or 蛋家 (daan⁶ gaa¹, dang⁶ gaa¹).

Noun

tancá

1. small Chinese rowing boat, normally with no canvas cover
2. (derogatory) people living on these boats

   Synonyms: (regular terms) tancarêro, tancarêra

Usage notes

• Where the Cantonese term describes the people living on the boats, the Macanese term generally only describes the boat itself.

Derived terms

• tancarêro, tancarêra

References

• https://www.macaneselibrary.org/pub/english/uipatua.htm#t
• Batalha, Graciete Nogueira (1988) “tancá”, 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 541