{"id":5108,"date":"2008-03-25T13:52:57","date_gmt":"2008-03-25T18:52:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com?p=5108"},"modified":"2008-03-25T11:05:56","modified_gmt":"2008-03-25T16:05:56","slug":"surinames_lingu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2008\/03\/25\/surinames_lingu\/","title":{"rendered":"Suriname’s Linguistic Khichri"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York Times has an article <\/a> on Sranan Tongo<\/a>, the creole language that is spoken by a majority of people in Suriname<\/a>, in South America.<\/p>\n\n

Suriname, like Guyana and Trinidad, has a large Indian diaspora population from the 19th century, people who came across originally as indentured laborers. For a country of just 470,000 people, the linguistic and cultural diversity is truly astonishing:<\/p>\n\n

To get a sense of the Babel of languages here, just stroll through this capital, which resembles a small New England town except the stately white clapboard houses are interspersed with palm trees, colorful Chinese casinos and minaret-topped mosques.

\n\nSlip into one of the Indonesian eateries known as warungs to hear Javanese, spoken by about 15 percent of the population. Choose a roti shop, with its traditional Indian bread, to listen to Surinamese Hindi, spoken by the descendants of 19th-century Indian immigrants, who make up more than a third of the population. And merchants throughout Paramaribo speak Chinese, even though the numbers of Chinese immigrants are small. (link<\/a>)<\/blockquote>\n\n

Is it just me, or is Suriname exactly like Queens? (The food options sound enticing.)<\/p>\n\n

For the curious, there is a Sranan Tongo-to-English dictionary here<\/a> (not many words derived from Indian languages, as far as I can tell), and a “Sarnami Hindustani”-to-Dutch dictionary here<\/a>. (Of course, for the latter, you need to know Dutch!)<\/p>\n\n

I would also recommend a reader comment<\/a> on an earlier post by Vinod (where he mentioned the Surinamese Indians in Amsterdam).
\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The New York Times has an article on Sranan Tongo, the creole language that is spoken by a majority of people in Suriname, in South America. Suriname, like Guyana and Trinidad, has a large Indian diaspora population from the 19th … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5108"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5108\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}