Back Sranantongo Afrikaans لغة سرانان Arabic Sranan tongo AST اسرانان دیلی AZB Sranan Tongo Breton Sranan tongo Catalan Сранан-тонго CE Sranan Tongo Czech Sranan tongo Danish Sranantongo German
| Sranan Tongo | |
|---|---|
| Sranantongo, Sranan | |
| Native to | Suriname |
| Ethnicity | Afro-Surinamese |
Native speakers | L1: 520,000 (2018)[1] L2: 150,000 |
English Creole
| |
| Latin | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 | srn |
| ISO 639-3 | srn |
| Glottolog | sran1240 |
| Linguasphere | 52-ABB-aw |
Sranan Tongo (Sranantongo "Surinamese tongue", Sranan, Surinamese Creole) [2]
Sranan is an English-based creole language from Suriname, located in Mainland Caribbean.
Created by Afro-Surinamese people in the 17th century during the Transatlantic Slave trade. Its influences are Central & West African, Indigenous (and European languages.
Linguists label Sranan a radical English-based Creole language, notable for its surprisingly high amount of Africanisms compared to most Creole languages found in the Americas. It's not mutually intelligible with English or Dutch and has a distinctive grammar with strong African influences.[3]
Sranan is very popular in Suriname and spoken as the lingua franca across all ethnicities by 80-90% of the population (Approximately 519,600). It's mainly used in social interactions, trade and music.
It's very also popular in the Surinamese Diaspora. Primarily found in The Netherlands, United States, French-Guiana and the rest of the Caribbean.
The official language of Suriname is Dutch, despite Sranan being the lingua franca throughout the whole country across all ethnicities having no official status as of yet.
Sranan is very popular in The Netherlands, similar to Jamaican Patois in the UK and AAVE in The United States.[4]
- ^ Sranan Tongo at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ^ Braun, Maria (2009). Word-formation and Creolisation: the case of early Sranan. Linguistische Arbeiten. Tübingen: Niemeyer. ISBN 978-3-484-30517-5.
- ^ Muysken, Pieter; Smith, Norval; Borges, Robert B., eds. (2015). Surviving the middle passage: the West Africa-Surinam Sprachbund. Trends in linguistics Studies and monographs. Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton. ISBN 978-3-11-039499-3.
- ^ "DPG Media Privacy Gate". myprivacy.dpgmedia.nl. Retrieved 2025-02-04.
