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This book explores a relatively little investigated area of creole languages, word-formation. It provides the most comprehensive account so far of the word-formation patterns of an English-based creole language, Sranan, as found in its earliest sources, and compares them with the patterns attested in the input languages. One of the few studies of creole morphology based on historical data, the book discusses the theoretical problems arising with the historical analysis of creole word-formation and provides an analysis along the lines of Booij's (2005, 2007) Construction Morphology in which the assumed boundaries between affixation, compounding and syntactic constructions play a very minor role. It shows that Early Sranan word-formation is characterised by the absence of superstrate derivational affixes, the use of free morphemes as derivational markers and of compounding as the major word-formation strategy. The emergence of Early Sranan word-formation involved multiple sources (the input languages, universals, language-internal development) and different mechanisms (reanalysis of free morphemes as derivational markers, adaptation of superstrate complex words, transfer from the substrates and the creation of innovations). The findings render untenable theoretical accounts of creole genesis based on one explanatory factor, such as superstrate or substrate influence.

This monograph is about the chains of verbs commonly found in Creole Languages, West African languages, in particular the Kwa sub-group of Niger-Congo, Chinese and certain other languages and have acquired the name of 'serial verbs' in the literature. As a case study, the serial constructions of Sranan, a creole language of Surinam with an English lexical base, are examined in detail.

Proposing a new methodological approach to documenting languages spoken in multilingual societies, this book retraces the investigation of one unique linguistic space, the Creole varieties referred to as Takitaki in multilingual French Guiana. It illustrates how interactional sociolinguistic, anthropological linguistic, discourse analytical and quantitative sociolinguistic approaches can be integrated with structural approaches to language in order to resolve rarely discussed questions systematically (what are the outlines of the community, who is a rightful speaker, what speech should be documented) that frequently crop up in projects of language documentation in multilingual contexts. The authors argue that comprehensively documenting complex linguistic phenomena requires taking into account the views of all local social actors (native and non-native speakers, institutions, linguists, non-speakers, etc.), applying a range of complementary data collection and analysis methods and putting issues of ideology, variation, language contact and interaction centre stage. This book will be welcomed by researchers in sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, fieldwork studies, language documentation and language variation and change.

Ethnicity and language have often been considered jointly on the grounds of their intrinsic interrelation: hard ethnic boundaries are manifested by the use of heritage languages, while dynamics of assimilation reduce the need to linguistically project ethnic distinctness.This article seeks to test the interrelation between patterns of language use and ethnic boundaries in the context of Suriname by analyzing perceptions of ethnolinguistic boundaries elicited from a sample of young informants from Paramaribo. The findings suggest that Surinamese ethnic boundaries are salient, albeit eroding in urban areas. Erosion is visible at a linguistic level in what seems to be a general shift in urban areas toward Dutch and Sranan Tongo. However, this shift might be proceeding at different paces from one ethnic group to the next. As a result, ethnicity is reflected in variable levels of linguistic competence in Dutch and Sranan Tongo.

Jessica Roitman and Karwan Fatah-Black meet Natalie Zemon Davis outside the University Library in Leiden for lunch and an interview. Although Davis is eager to study a Sranan-German dictionary she retrieved from the library, the three of them sit down for an engaging conversation on the historian’s craft, its societal relevance and the future of early modern studies.

This posthumous work by Jacques Arends offers new insights into the emergence of the creole languages of Suriname including Sranantongo or Suriname Plantation Creole, Ndyuka, and Saramaccan, and the sociohistorical context in which they developed. Drawing on a wealth of sources including little known historical texts, the author points out the relevance of European settlements prior to colonization by the English in 1651 and concludes that the formation of the Surinamese creoles goes back further than generally assumed. He provides an all-encompassing sociolinguistic overview of the colony up to the mid-19th century and shows how ethnicity, language attitude, religion and location had an effect on which languages were spoken by whom. The author discusses creole data gleaned from the earliest sources and interprets the attested variation. The book is completed by annotated textual data, both oral and written and representing different genres and stages of the Surinamese creoles. It will be of interest to linguists, historians, anthropologists, literary scholars and anyone interested in Suriname.

This article examines the interaction between the two main languages of Suriname, Surinamese Dutch (SD) and Sranan Tongo (ST). It focusses on structural effects caused by code switching (CS) and its impact on the lexical changes of the languages involved. Using theLeipzig Glossing Rules, the morphosyntactic structure of a number of sample sentences becomes clear and the interaction between SD and ST becomes visible. Which categories of loan and trigger words can be found in multilingual Surinamese discourses? And how do we define Sranan-based loan words in Surinamese Dutch? These questions will be examined through a body of data that was compiled during field research in Paramaribo. These data include language use on computer-mediated communication (CMC). CMC belongs to daily life for a section of the Surinamese population. This development has made it possible to research Surinamese multilingualism from a different perspective ‐ a perspective that includes the features of oral and written communication (see Dorleijn & Nortier, 2008, p. 127). One of the oral features is the aforementioned phenomenon of code switching. This article contributes to the study of the interaction between creole languages and Germanic languages.

Fernando Ortiz (1881-1968), Cuban Ur-scholar who wrote extensively on AfroCuban culture, was the first to coin the term \"transculturation\"-that is, to make it stick-in analyzing the historical, cultural, economic counterpoint between tobacco and sugar that he claimed could be the organizing image for understanding the island's rich sociocultural brew. Ortiz analyzed transculturation as occurring in a culture that is subjugated under colonialism and slavery and that is able to incorporate, transform, and subtlety subvert elements of the dominant culture to fashion meanings that ensure not only the survival of a culture and its people but also their ability to thrive and create a new culture. In the cultural encounters between Spain and the \"New World,\" between Latin America and the Caribbean, a history of violent conquest and creative resistance has generated communities with a unique sensitivity to the movement of politics and history in the flow of everyday lives. The demons and angels of history unleashed by transculturation are the product of asymmetrical power relationships, and therefore the exchange can go through a number of scenarios: colonial imposition (conquest, slavery, racialist domination), obligatory assimilation, genocide, political cooptation, passive resistance (theft, sabotage, feigning sickness, illegal trade), political subterfuge, tricksterism, and outright rebellion. Transculturation, then, can be used to describe religious phenomena (syncretisms, such as in Regla de Ocha, or Santeria), biological terms like hybridity (music like the danzón or salsa, food like ajiacos, callaloos, or sancochos), human-genetic realities (mestizaje and race mixing), language (French or English creoles, Sranan-Tongo, Papiamento), and healing methods (curanderismo, shamanism, Afro-Caribbean religious healing rituals) (West-Durán).