Here is some interesting information. I have copied this from the Oxford dictionary, which is a chart for the usage of the word "Goanese".
1851 R. F. BURTON Goa v. 91 The Goanese smoke all day, ladies as well as gentlemen. Ibid. 93 A Goanese noble. 1909 Chambers's Jrnl. Aug. 523/1 A batch of Goanese tailors' shops. 1920 Ibid. May 299/2, I was obliged to read the burial service in Latin out of a prayer~book lent me by a Goanese cook. 1961 Daily Tel. 20 Dec. 8 Did the Goanese really yearn for ‘liberation’? 1970 Times 10 Feb. 17/2 (Advt.), A rare late 17th century Goanese cabinet. An early usage comes from Burton himself. This is not to say it was coined by Burton, only that that is the earliest the Oxford could trace it to. You will notice that in each of these quotations it has not been used in any derogatory manner. Now, here under is the time-chart for the word Goan. 1927 J. FURTADO (title) A Goan Fiddler. 1927 E. GOSSE Ibid. Pref. p. vi, He was..not happy among the Goans. 1961 Daily Tel. 8 Dec. 1 There is no solution to the Goan problem except the Portuguese walking out. 1966 C. SWEENEY Scurrying Bush viii. 119 An Indian or Goan at the other end began asking me seemingly irrelevant questions. 1971 Illustr. Weekly India 25 Apr. 9/1 Goans and Parsis were the pioneers but now the [modelling] profession has full representation. Now to a few of the questions raised. a) No, the British did not use the word Goanese on their ships to denote occupation. They used the word consistently and frequently to denote nationality and more importantly (and this is a very important point) to make a clear distinction from their other word "lascari" which they used for the Indian crew. The Goan crew were always stewards, saloon boys or cooks. That is they worked on deck and as such were held in higher esteem from the "lascari crew". So in maritine records you will see the usage of the word being extremely positive and certainly not derogatory. b) Gabe is absolutely right in that in Kenya, the British were well aware of the "Goan community" and used the word Goan, but again earlier explorers to Africa, such as Hanning, Burton and Livingstone himself, in their diaries and letters refer to the Goans as Goanese. Secondly, the word Goanese continues to be used in official correspondence in Africa even into the 1970s. In 1972 for instance there is a report made on the "Goanese community in Malawi" which was another British East Africa colony. I suspect Colonial officers who came to these colonies on short term assignments without much knowledge of the local history, used the word Goanese. c) The word "malhindi" is a combination of the word "mal" + Hindi, mal preforming here a similar function as to the African "wa", meaning belonging to. It is borrowed from the Urdu/Hindi word of the same. The British press continued to use the word "Goanese" even into mid-20th century. There is no evidence whatsoever that the word for the British atleast had undergone linguistic pejoration. I juxatopose this against an even cursory reading of the word "nigger". One realises immediately how pejorative it is. To prove that a word has become a pejorative, it must consistently be used in a discriminatory fashion. Since I have little actual knowledge of what conditions persisted in the early 20th century in Bombay, it could well be that in certain quarters, it might have been bandied about as derogatory. But the same can be said of any word. Even NRI can be considered a pejorative, as in "what do NRIs know?" ;-)) So fellow Goans, let's cut out the hyper-sensitivity ok? To paraphrase George Pinto, we have far more pressing problems. best, selma
