Organising Committee

Kabesa (Head) / Director Kevin Martens Wong is a final-year NUS linguistics undergraduate of Portuguese-Eurasian descent, head of the Kodrah Kristang revitalisation initiative, and director of the first ever Kristang Language Festival 2017. For his work on Kristang, Kevin was nominated for the 2017 Linguistic Society of America Excellence in Community Linguistics Award, selected for the 2016 Institute for Collaborative Language Research (CoLang) at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, and appointed to the CoLang Advisory Circle, which develops new initiatives for the documentation, maintenance, and revitalisation of endangered languages worldwide. He is also an assistant editor of Unravel: The Accessible Linguistics Magazine.

Prua (Prow) / Programme Fuad Johari is a civil servant and avid fan of history, culture, and languages, especially those of Singapore and the Southeast Asian region. He is interested in the alternative faces of Singapore not widely seen or publicised in the country. Hailing from a minority background, he is keen to see how efforts to revitalise Kristang may provide a way forward for like-minded heritage speakers from other communities who may wish to spearhead their own revitalisation efforts.

Langgian (Push-net) / Publicity Frances Loke Wei is a linguistics major at NUS and the editor-in-chief of Unravel: The Accessible Linguistics Magazine. A native Cantonese-speaking Singaporean with no one her age to speak to in Cantonese, she hopes for a Singapore that celebrates its diverse linguistic landscape and people. She strives to explore Singapore's enviro-social values beyond the economic and reclaim knowledge of Singapore's collective linguistic, cultural, and environmental heritage. She works alongside Kevin as a Kontah Kristang audio course presenter and Kodrah Kristang lesson facilitator.

Galang (Hull) / Logistics Anirudh Krishnan is a polyglot, traveller, and enthusiast of language and culture. Having learned Portuguese and lived in Galicia, Spain where a dialect of Portuguese is spoken, he is deeply intrigued by Kristang language and culture, and its similarities with the seafaring culture of Galicia. He has worked with Kevin on Unravel: The Accessible Linguistics Magazine as assistant editor, and assisted with developing Kontah and Kriseh Kristang, an upcoming Kristang textbook, and Kristang lessons.

Mastru (Mast) / Language Consultant Bernard Mesenas is a Kristang language consultant for a Field Methods in Linguistics module at the National University of Singapore and one of the last native Kristang speakers in Singapore. Bernard taught English in St Gabriel’s Primary School for more than 35 years and brings a wealth of experience teaching language to Kodrah Kristang classes. Bernard enjoys speaking Kristang because it is the language his grandmother spoke to him as a child, and he loves his grandmother very much.