Sranantongo
| Sranantongo, Surinamese | ||
|---|---|---|
|
Spoken in |
Suriname | |
| speaker | 500,000 | |
| Linguistic classification |
|
|
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639 -2 | ( B ) srn | ( T ) srn |
Sranantongo (also Sranan for short , Dutch : Surinaams ); formerly also pejoratively referred to as Negro Angels ( Negro English) or Taki-Taki (something like "blah"), is a Creole language spoken in Suriname .
Although Sranantongo is often referred to as an English-based Creole language due to the many words probably adopted from English ( mi "my", futu "foot"), this claim is not undisputed. There are also indications that Portuguese can be seen as a basis, from this source comes, among other things, bun “gut”. The influence of African languages is also clearly visible. Today the influence of Dutch is increasing again, especially in the city, where so-called photo taki (“city language”) is spoken, which is more influenced by Dutch and English; in contrast to Dipi Taki ("deep language"), which is spoken in rural Suriname. However, clear delimitations are not always possible within the extremely complex language landscape of Suriname.
Sranan's first written testimony was created in 1781 with the Singi Buku (hymn book) and in 1784 with the Nyun Testament by the Moravian Brethren , which has been missionary in Suriname since 1735 . Teaching Dutch to slaves was forbidden until the second half of the 19th century . Like most Creole languages, Sranantongo does not have a high status in the population. Despite this limitation, Sranantongo is a fully fledged language that has also been used in poems, including by Henri Frans de Ziel (alias Trefossa ). After the Second World War efforts were made to establish Sranantongo as the national language of Suriname, but no official dictionary or grammar was ever published.
Origin, History and Related Languages
During the Dutch colonial era , slaves fled the plantations into the nearby rainforest . These then joined together to form communities called Maroons (the largest groups among them are the Saramaccans and the Ndyuka ). In order to obtain essential goods such as iron, these communities were dependent on raids, which led to constant tensions with the colonial administration.
A contemporary description of the quarrel between a European mercenary force and revolting Maroons in the second half of the 18th century can be found in a book by John Gabriel Stedman , published in 1796 and quite successful. Illustrations by William Blake can also be found in this book .
After the Maroons had proven to be difficult opponents to defeat, various treaties were signed with them that guaranteed them freedom and gave them permission to trade peacefully with the Europeans, but on the condition that they did not add any new slaves to their ranks were allowed to record. But since slaves continued to flee, they in turn formed their own communities, which were later also contractually incorporated in the same way. Since these communities had hardly any contact with Europeans, their Creole languages were not further Europeanized. That is why there are three different Creole languages in Suriname today, all of which originally have the same basis, but were exposed to different degrees of European influence. The older of the Maroon Creole languages, the Saramaccaans , still shows very strong Portuguese and West African features. The younger one, the Aukaans , has lost some African and Portuguese elements.
Today's Sranantongo
Sranan is the language of the vast majority of the descendants of slaves who never escaped but were freed at the end of the 19th century. Sranan has replaced many of the Portuguese words with English and Dutch and greatly expanded his vocabulary by borrowing from Dutch and English (see: Extension language ). The phonetic form has also adapted to very European patterns. The two African phonemes kp and gb were replaced by kw and gw and the original tonality was lost. Consonant clusters such as kr- at the beginning of the word or -ntr- in the interior of the word are not uncommon today, originally the syllable structure was probably, as is still today in the Saramaccan, strictly consonant vowels, with nasalized vowels and prenasalized consonants occurring.
Today's distribution
Sranan Tongo is called in Suriname by almost the entire population lingua franca spoken. About 100,000 people speak Sranantongo as their mother tongue (the so-called Creoles , i.e. the descendants of the slaves who never fled) and, according to an estimate from 1997, about 300,000 people speak as a second language. Multilingualism with Dutch , English and the languages of the other ethnic groups is widespread, so that code switching with Sranantongo often occurs, especially in informal situations . However, the only official and written language of Suriname is Dutch . Sranan is also very common among the Dutch of Surinamese origin.
Language examples
- yu kan sori mi wan bun restaurant? - "Can you recommend a good restaurant to me?"
- san yu abi fu nyan? - "What do you have to eat?"
Numerals
noti (0), wan (1), tu (2), dri (3), fo (4), feifi (5), siksi (6), seibi (7), aiti (8), neigi (9), tin (10)
literature
- JCM Blanker; J. Dubbeldam: Prisma woordenboek Sranantongo-Nederlands, Nederlands-Sranantongo . Uitgeverij Het Spectrum BV, Utrecht 2005, ISBN 90-274-1478-5 .
- Michaël Ietswaart; Vinije Haabo: Sranantongo: Surinaams voor Reizigers en thuisblijvers . Uitgeverij Jan Mets, Amsterdam 2000, ISBN 90-5330-271-9 .
- René Hart: Sranantongo. Leer werkboek Surinaamse cultuur , The Hague 1996, ISBN 90-75753-01-2 .
- Eddy van der Hilst: Skrifi Sranantongo Bun, Leysi En Bun Tu . Drukkerij lberga NV, Paramaribo 1988.
- Jan Voorhoeve: Creole Drum, New Haven, Yale University Press . 1975, ISBN 0-300-01661-1 .
- Michiel van Kempen: The Literary Infrastructure of Suriname: Problems and Changes. In: A History of Literature in the Caribbean, Volume 2: English- and Dutch-speaking regions . Benjamin, Philadelphia PA (2001), ISBN 1-58811-041-9 .
- HR Wullschlägel : German-Negro English dictionary. In addition to an appendix, containing proverbs in Negro English. Löbau, 1856 digitized
Web links
- Dictionary German - Sranantongo
- Review article on Sranan in the Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures
Individual evidence
- ^ Henning Radke: The lexical interaction between Dutch and Sranantongo in Surinamese online communication . In: Taal en Tongval . tape 69 , no. 1 , September 1, 2017, p. 113–136 ( ingentaconnect.com [accessed January 12, 2018]).