Ndyuka , also called Aukan, ''Okanisi, Ndyuka tongo'', Aukaans, ''Businenge Tongo'' (considered by some to be pejorative), Eastern Maroon Creole, or ''Nenge'' is a
creole language
A creole language, or simply creole, is a stable natural language that develops from the simplifying and mixing of different languages into a new one within a fairly brief period of time: often, a pidgin evolved into a full-fledged language. ...
of
Suriname
Suriname (; srn, Sranankondre or ), officially the Republic of Suriname ( nl, Republiek Suriname , srn, Ripolik fu Sranan), is a country on the northeastern Atlantic coast of South America. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the nor ...
and
French Guiana
French Guiana ( or ; french: link=no, Guyane ; gcr, label= French Guianese Creole, Lagwiyann ) is an overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France on the northern Atlantic coast of South America in the Guianas ...
, spoken by the
Ndyuka people
The Ndyuka people (also spelled 'Djuka') or Aukan people (''Okanisi''), are one of six Maroon peoples (formerly called "Bush Negroes", which also has pejorative tinges) in the Republic of Suriname and one of the Maroon peoples in French Guia ...
. The speakers are one of six
Maroon peoples (formerly called "Bush Negroes") in the Republic of
Suriname
Suriname (; srn, Sranankondre or ), officially the Republic of Suriname ( nl, Republiek Suriname , srn, Ripolik fu Sranan), is a country on the northeastern Atlantic coast of South America. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the nor ...
and one of the Maroon peoples in
French Guiana
French Guiana ( or ; french: link=no, Guyane ; gcr, label= French Guianese Creole, Lagwiyann ) is an overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France on the northern Atlantic coast of South America in the Guianas ...
. Most of the 25 to 30 thousand speakers live in the interior of the country, which is a part of the country covered with
tropical rainforest
Tropical rainforests are rainforests that occur in areas of tropical rainforest climate in which there is no dry season – all months have an average precipitation of at least 60 mm – and may also be referred to as ''lowland equator ...
s.
Ethnologue
''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' (stylized as ''Ethnoloɠue'') is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensi ...
list
two related languagesunder the name ''Ndyuka'', the other being a dialect of
Lutos.
Phonology
Ndyuka is based on
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ...
vocabulary, with influence from
African languages
The languages of Africa are divided into several major language families:
* Niger–Congo or perhaps Atlantic–Congo languages (includes Bantu and non-Bantu, and possibly Mande and others) are spoken in West, Central, Southeast and Souther ...
in its grammar and sounds. For example, the difference between ''na'' ("is") and ''ná'' ("isn't") is
tone; words can start with consonants such as ''mb'' and ''ng'', and some speakers use the consonants ''
kp'' and ''
gb''. (For other Ndyuka speakers, these are pronounced ''kw'' and ''gw'', respectively. For example, the word "to leave" is ''gwé'' or ''gbé'', from English "go away".) A distinguishing characteristic of the language is the elimination of the letter ''r'' which is frequently used in
Sranan Tongo
Sranan Tongo (also Sranantongo "Surinamese tongue," Sranan, Surinaams, Surinamese, Surinamese Creole) is an English-based creole language that is spoken as a ''lingua franca'' by approximately 550,000 people in Suriname.
Developed originally amo ...
.
There are also influences from other languages. According to ''Creolization and Contact'' (2002), 46% of the words were from English, 16% from
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
, 35% from
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods
** Portuguese language, a Romance language
*** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language
** Portu ...
, and 3% from African languages.
Orthography
Modern
orthography
An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation.
Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and ...
differs from an older
Dutch
Dutch commonly refers to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands
* Dutch people ()
* Dutch language ()
Dutch may also refer to:
Places
* Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States
* Pennsylvania Dutch Country
People E ...
-based orthography in substituting ''u'' for ''oe'' and ''y'' for ''j''. The
digraphs ''ty'' and ''dy'' are pronounced somewhat like the English ''
ch'' and ''
j'', respectively. Tone is infrequently written, but it is required for words such as ''ná'' ("isn't"). The syllabic
Afaka script was devised for Ndyuka in 1908.
Latin alphabet
* A -
* B -
* D -
* E -
* F -
* G -
* H -
* I -
* K -
* L -
* M -
* N -
* O -
* P -
* S -
* T -
* U -
* W -
* Y -
* Z -
Other letters
* dy -
͡ʒ* ny -
�* sy -
�* ty -
͡ʃ
Long vowels are written with double vowels (e.g. aa
ː ee
ː
An acute accent is sometimes used for a high tone. (e.g. á)
Dialects
The Ndyuka language has three dialects: proper Ndyuka (or ''Okanisi''),
Aluku
The Aluku are a Bushinengue ethnic group living mainly on the riverbank in Maripasoula in southwest French Guiana. The group are sometimes called Boni, referring to the 18th-century leader, Bokilifu Boni.
History
The Aluku are an ethnic gr ...
, and
Paramaccan
The Paramaccan or Paramaka (French: Pamak) are a Maroon tribe living in the forested interior of Suriname, mainly in the Paramacca resort, and the western border area of French Guiana. The Paramaccan signed a peace treaty in 1872 granting the ...
, which are ethnically distinct..
Kwinti is distinct enough linguistically to be considered a separate language, but it is sometimes included as well under the name ''Ndyuka''.
Ndyuka was also a basis of the
Ndyuka-Tiriyó Pidgin.
Example
Here is an example of Ndyuka text, and its translation into English (showing the similitarities as well as the lexical evolution), adapted from ''Languages of the Guianas (SIL Publications)'':
The language bears some similarity to
Twi and other
Akan languages Akan may refer to:
People and languages
*Akan people, an ethnic group in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire
*Akan language, a language spoken by the Akan people
*Kwa languages, a language group which includes Akan
* Central Tano languages, a language group ...
spoken by the
Akan people
The Akan () people live primarily in present-day Ghana and Ivory Coast in West Africa. The Akan language (also known as ''Twi/Fante'') are a group of dialects within the Central Tano branch of the Potou–Tano subfamily of the Niger–Con ...
of Ghana.
Encoding
The
IETF language tag
An IETF BCP 47 language tag is a standardized code or tag that is used to identify human languages in the Internet. The tag structure has been standardized by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in ''Best Current Practice (BCP) 47''; the s ...
s have registered:
* as "Eastern Maroon Creole", "Businenge Tongo", "Nenge"
** for the
Aluku language
** for the Ndyuka language
** for the
Paramaccan language
* for the
Kwinti language
See also
*
Maroon (people)
Maroons are descendants of Africans in the Americas who escaped from slavery and formed their own settlements. They often mixed with indigenous peoples, eventually evolving into separate creole cultures such as the Garifuna and the Mascogo ...
*
Afaka script
Notes
References
Further reading
*
External links
Aukan–English Language Learning Library
{{Languages of Suriname