Saramaccan () 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. ...
spoken by about 58,000 ethnic African people near the
Saramacca and the upper
Suriname River
The Suriname River (Dutch: ''Surinamerivier'') is 480 km long and flows through the country Suriname. Its sources are located in the Guiana Highlands on the border between the Wilhelmina Mountains and the Eilerts de Haan Mountains (where it i ...
, as well as in
Paramaribo
Paramaribo (; ; nicknamed Par'bo) is the capital and largest city of Suriname, located on the banks of the Suriname River in the Paramaribo District. Paramaribo has a population of roughly 241,000 people (2012 census), almost half of Suriname's ...
, capital 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 north ...
(formerly also known as
Dutch Guiana). The language also has 25,000 speakers in
French Guiana
French Guiana ( or ; french: link=no, Guyane ; gcr, label=French Guianese Creole, Lagwiyann ) is an overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department/region and single territorial collectivity of France on the northern Atlantic ...
and 8,000 in the Netherlands.
It has three main dialects. The speakers are mostly descendants of fugitive
slaves
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
who were native to
West
West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sunset, Sun sets on the Earth.
Etymology
The word "west" is a Germanic languages, German ...
and
Central Africa
Central Africa is a subregion of the African continent comprising various countries according to different definitions. Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, ...
; they form a group called Saamacca, also spelled
Saramaka
The Saramaka, Saamaka or Saramacca are one of six Maroon peoples (formerly called "Bush Negroes") in the Republic of Suriname and one of the Maroon peoples in French Guiana. In 2007, the Saramaka won a ruling by the Inter-American Court of Hum ...
.
Linguists consider Saramaccan notable because its vocabulary is based on two European source languages,
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 ide ...
(30%) and
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 ...
(20%), and various West and Central African languages (50%), but it diverges considerably from all of them. The African component accounts for about 50% once ritual use is taken into account, the highest percentage in the Americas. It is derived from
Niger–Congo languages
Niger–Congo is a hypothetical language family spoken over the majority of sub-Saharan Africa. It unites the Mande languages, the Atlantic-Congo languages (which share a characteristic noun class system), and possibly several smaller groups of ...
of West Africa, especially
Fon and other
Gbe languages
The Gbe languages (pronounced ) form a cluster of about twenty related languages stretching across the area between eastern Ghana and western Nigeria. The total number of speakers of Gbe languages is between four and eight million. The most widel ...
, as well as
Akan 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 w ...
and Central African languages such as
Kikongo
Kongo or Kikongo is one of the Bantu languages spoken by the Kongo people living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, Gabon and Angola. It is a tonal language. It was spoken by many of those who were taken from th ...
.
Origins
The language is derived from Plantation Creole which is nowadays known as
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 ...
, but the branches diverged around 1690 and evolved separately. The Saramaccan lexicon is largely drawn from English, Portuguese, and, to a lesser extent,
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 ...
, among European languages, and
Niger-Congo languages of West Africa, especially
Fon and other
Gbe languages
The Gbe languages (pronounced ) form a cluster of about twenty related languages stretching across the area between eastern Ghana and western Nigeria. The total number of speakers of Gbe languages is between four and eight million. The most widel ...
,
Akan 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 w ...
, and Central African languages, such as
KiKongo
Kongo or Kikongo is one of the Bantu languages spoken by the Kongo people living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, Gabon and Angola. It is a tonal language. It was spoken by many of those who were taken from th ...
. The African component accounts for about 50% of the total.
Saramaccan
phonology
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
has traits similar to languages of West Africa. It has developed the use of
tones, which are common in Africa, rather than
stress
Stress may refer to:
Science and medicine
* Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition
* Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...
, which is typical of European languages.
Over a fourth of words are from English. It is generally agreed that the Portuguese influence originated from enslaved peoples who lived on plantations with Portuguese masters and possibly with other slaves who spoke a Portuguese creole. The masters might have brought the latter in migrating to Suriname from
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
. Saramaccan originators began with an early form of
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 ...
, an English-based creole, and transformed it into a new creole via the Portuguese influx, combined with influence from the grammars of
Fongbe
Fon (, ) is spoken in Benin, Nigeria, Togo, Ghana and Gabon by approximately 1.7 million speakers, and is the language of the Fon people. Like the other Gbe languages, Fon is an isolating language with an SVO basic word order.
Cultural and le ...
and other
Gbe languages
The Gbe languages (pronounced ) form a cluster of about twenty related languages stretching across the area between eastern Ghana and western Nigeria. The total number of speakers of Gbe languages is between four and eight million. The most widel ...
.
Dialects
Saramaccan is divided into two main dialects. The Upper Suriname River dialect and the Lower Suriname River dialect are both spoken by members of the
Saramaccan tribe. And by the Surinamese people who are living in the 12 English-speaking Caribbean nations of which 7 have a foreign relationship with the Republic of Suriname:
Barbados
Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate). ...
,
Belize
Belize (; bzj, Bileez) is a Caribbean and Central American country on the northeastern coast of Central America. It is bordered by Mexico to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and Guatemala to the west and south. It also shares a wate ...
,
Dominica
Dominica ( or ; Kalinago: ; french: Dominique; Dominican Creole French: ), officially the Commonwealth of Dominica, is an island country in the Caribbean. The capital, Roseau, is located on the western side of the island. It is geographically ...
,
Grenada
Grenada ( ; Grenadian Creole French: ) is an island country in the West Indies in the Caribbean Sea at the southern end of the Grenadines island chain. Grenada consists of the island of Grenada itself, two smaller islands, Carriacou and Pe ...
,
Guyana
Guyana ( or ), officially the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, is a country on the northern mainland of South America. Guyana is an indigenous word which means "Land of Many Waters". The capital city is Georgetown. Guyana is bordered by the ...
,
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines () is an island country in the Caribbean. It is located in the southeast Windward Islands of the Lesser Antilles, which lie in the West Indies at the southern end of the eastern border of the Caribbean Sea wh ...
and
Trinidad and Tobago
Trinidad and Tobago (, ), officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the main islands Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous much smaller islands, it is situated south of ...
. And the other five that don't have a foreign relationship with the Republic of Suriname as yet:
Antigua and Barbuda
Antigua and Barbuda (, ) is a sovereign country in the West Indies. It lies at the juncture of the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean in the Leeward Islands part of the Lesser Antilles, at 17°N latitude. The country consists of two maj ...
,
Bahamas
The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to ...
,
Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
,
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Kitts and Nevis (), officially the Federation of Saint Christopher and Nevis, is an island country and microstate consisting of the two islands of Saint Kitts and Nevis, both located in the West Indies, in the Leeward Islands chain of ...
and
Saint Lucia
Saint Lucia ( acf, Sent Lisi, french: Sainte-Lucie) is an island country of the West Indies in the eastern Caribbean. The island was previously called Iouanalao and later Hewanorra, names given by the native Arawaks and Caribs, two Amerindian ...
.
Matawai
The
Matawai tribe has its own language which is related to the Saramaka language. The language is derived from Plantation Creole which is nowadays known as
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 ...
, however the branches diverged around 1700, and evolved separately. Matawai is spoken in the villages in
Kwakoegron and
Boven Saramacca
Boven Saramacca is a resort in Suriname, located in the Sipaliwini District. Its population at the 2012 census was 1,427. The dominant geographical feature of this resort is the Saramacca River. The resort is mainly inhabited by Maroons of the M ...
, however code switching with Sranan Tongo, other Maroon languages, and
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 ...
is common. The language is considered endangered.
Phonology
Vowels
Each oral vowel also has a corresponding
nasal vowel
A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the soft palate (or velum) so that the air flow escapes through the nose and the mouth simultaneously, as in the French vowel or Amoy []. By contrast, oral vowels are produced wit ...
. There are also three vowel lengths: "red", "belly," "bread."
Consonants
are more specifically
dorso
Dorso is a Chilean metal band. Common themes in the band's music are horror film creatures, hyperbolic sexual fetishes and Chilean myths.
The band's frontman, Rodrigo Cuadra, became a TV presenter in the 1990s.
History
Early years (1984â ...
-
postalveolar consonant, postalveolar, but the palatal fricative is
dorso
Dorso is a Chilean metal band. Common themes in the band's music are horror film creatures, hyperbolic sexual fetishes and Chilean myths.
The band's frontman, Rodrigo Cuadra, became a TV presenter in the 1990s.
History
Early years (1984â ...
-
palatal
The palate () is the roof of the mouth in humans and other mammals. It separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity.
A similar structure is found in crocodilians, but in most other tetrapods, the oral and nasal cavities are not truly separ ...
.
Tone
The language has two surface
tones: high and low.
Stress
Stress may refer to:
Science and medicine
* Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition
* Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...
in European words is replaced by high tone in Saramaccan.
Orthography
Vowels
* a -
* e -
* ë -
›* i -
* o -
* ö -
”* u -
Long vowels are doubled or tripled.
Consonants
* b -
* d -
* dj -
Ÿ* g -
* gb -
¡Í¡b* h -
* j -
* k -
* kp -
Í¡p* l -
* m -
* mb -
b* n -
* nd -
d* nj -
²* p -
* s -
* t -
* tj -
§
* v -
* w -
Lexicon
Saramaccan's vocabulary is 30% derived from
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 ide ...
, 20% 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 ...
. It is one of the few known creoles to derive a large percentage of its lexicon from more than one source (most creoles have one main
lexifier
A lexifier is the language that provides the basis for the majority of a pidgin or creole language's vocabulary (lexicon). Often this language is also the dominant, or superstrate language, though this is not always the case, as can be seen in th ...
language). Also, it is said to be both an
English-based creole
An English-based creole language (often shortened to English creole) is a creole language for which English was the '' lexifier'', meaning that at the time of its formation the vocabulary of English served as the basis for the majority of the cre ...
and a
Portuguese-based creole
Portuguese creoles are creole languages which have Portuguese as their substantial lexifier. The most widely-spoken creoles influenced by Portuguese are Cape Verdean Creole, Guinea-Bissau Creole and Papiamento.
Origins
Portuguese overseas exp ...
.
About 50% of the vocabulary of Saramaccan is of
African
African or Africans may refer to:
* Anything from or pertaining to the continent of Africa:
** People who are native to Africa, descendants of natives of Africa, or individuals who trace their ancestry to indigenous inhabitants of Africa
*** Ethn ...
origin, the largest percentage of any creole in the
Americas
The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World.
Along with th ...
. Source languages for these words include
Kikongo
Kongo or Kikongo is one of the Bantu languages spoken by the Kongo people living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, Gabon and Angola. It is a tonal language. It was spoken by many of those who were taken from th ...
,
Gbe languages
The Gbe languages (pronounced ) form a cluster of about twenty related languages stretching across the area between eastern Ghana and western Nigeria. The total number of speakers of Gbe languages is between four and eight million. The most widel ...
, and
Twi
Twi () is a dialect of the Akan language spoken in southern and central Ghana by several million people, mainly of the Akan people, the largest of the seventeen major ethnic groups in Ghana. Twi has about 17-18 million speakers in total, includ ...
.
Examples
To English-speakers who are not familiar with it, Saramaccan's English basis is almost unrecognizable. Here are some examples of Saramaccan sentences that are taken from the SIL dictionary:
''De waka te de aan sinkii möön.''
"They walked until they were worn out."
''U ta mindi kanda fu dee soni dee ta pasa ku u.''
"We make up songs about things that happen to us."
''A suku di soni te wojo fëën ko bëë.''
"He searched for it in vain."
''Mi puu tu dusu kölu bai ën.''
"I paid two thousand guilders to buy it."
Examples of words originally from Portuguese or a Portuguese creole are ''mujee'' () "woman", ''womi'' () "man", ''da'' () "to give", ''bunu'' () "good", ''kaba'' () "to end", ''ku'' () "with", ''kuma'' (, cf. vernacular Brazilian for , "come again?") "as, like", ''faka'' () "knife", ''aki'' () "here", ''ma'' () "but", ''kendi'' () "hot", ''liba'' () "above", and ''lio'' () "river".
Literature
Saramaccan has a rich history of published works, including the following dictionaries: Christian Schumann's 1778, ''Saramaccanisch Deutsches Worter-Buch,'' Johannes Riemer's 1779 ''Wörterbuch zur Erlernung der Saramakka-Neger-Sprache,'' a copied and edited version of Schumann, Jan Voorhoeve and Antoon Donicie's 1963 wordlist, ''De Saramakaanse Woordenschat'', Antoon de Groot's, ''Woordregister Nederlands- Saramakaans met context en idioom'' (1977) and his ''Woordregister Saramakaans-Nederlands'' (1981), and Glock (ed) ''Holansi-Saamaka wöutubuku'' (Nederlands-Saramaccaans woordenboek)
The ''Instituut voor Taalwetenschap'' has published tens of literacy books and collections of folktales written by Saramaccans and a complete translation of the
New Testament
The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...
. Two books written by Richard Price have now been published in Saamakatongo: ''Fesiten'' and ''Boo go a Kontukonde''.
Alison Hinds
Alison Amanda Hinds (born 1 June 1970) is a British-born Bajan soca artist based in Barbados. She is one of the most popular soca singers in the world.
Biography
Alison Hinds was born in London on 1 June 1970 and grew up in Plaistow.Batey, A ...
of
Barbados
Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate). ...
based her up tempo soca song Faluma on the language. The Saramaccan orthography created by the
Summer Institute of Linguistics
SIL International (formerly known as the Summer Institute of Linguistics) is an evangelical Christian non-profit organization whose main purpose is to study, develop and document languages, especially those that are lesser-known, in order to ex ...
is not in universal use. Linguist Vinije Haabo is developing a Saramaccan dictionary based on an improved orthography, which he intends to publish online.
References
Sources
*
*
*
*
*
*
External links
Saramaccan Vocabulary List(from the World Loanword Database)
Survey article(from the
Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures
The Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures (APiCS) is a comparative linguistic atlas of contact languages. It exists as a four volume publication and online database in the form of a websitAPiCS Online
The atlas was edited by Susanne Maria ...
)
SIL Saramaccan-English dictionaryCollected Saramaccan textsLoan words in SaramaccanVariety of published resources in and about Saramaccan language and culture
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saramaccan Language
English-based pidgins and creoles
Languages of Suriname
Languages of French Guiana
Tonal languages
Portuguese-based pidgins and creoles
Saramaka
Languages of the African diaspora
Portuguese language in the Americas