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. ...

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

and one of the Maroon peoples in

. 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 ...

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 languages
under 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

-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

Notes

References

External links

Aukan–English Language Learning Library
{{Languages of Suriname