The Topazes were children of local or half-caste mothers and Portuguese or half-caste fathers. They would have been exposed to pidgin/creole Portuguese at home. They identified with Portuguese, a natural occurrence, considering that the Portuguese were at the apex of the social order, though they probably had local family ties as well. The Portuguese brought Bantu slaves (Kaffirs) to Sri Lanka from the eastern African Great Lakes region. These people would have spoken pidgin Portuguese, and it is likely that many were native creole speakers, but maybe not of the Sri Lanka variety. Because they mainly served as domestic servants, they would have introduced the very young children of Casados (married men who had come with their Portuguese wives as settlers to Sri Lanka) to the pidgin/creole. There may have also been children of chance unions of Portuguese or Topazes with Kaffirs, but it is unclear which group they would have belonged to.