Сранантóнго: Сурина́мский крео́льский язы́к

Creole language spoken in Suriname

Sranan Tongo (Sranantongo "Surinamese tongue", Sranan, Surinaams, Surinamese, Surinamese Creole) is an English based creole language that is spoken as a lingua franca by approximately 519,600 people in Suriname.

The Sranan Tongo words for "to know" and "small children" are sabi and pikin (respectively derived from Portuguese saber and pequeno). The Portuguese were the first European explorers of the West African coast. A trading pidgin language developed between them and Africans, and later explorers, including the English, also used this creole. Based on its lexicon, Sranan Tongo has been found to have developed originally as an English based creole language, because of the early influence of English colonists here in what was then part of English colony of Guiana, who imported numerous Africans as slaves for the plantations. After the Dutch takeover in 1667, following the Treaty of Westminster (1674) (in exchange for ceding the North American eastern seaboard colony of New Netherland to the English), a substantial overlay of words were adopted from the Dutch language. Sranan Tongo's lexicon is a fusion of mostly English and Dutch vocabulary (85%), plus some vocabulary from Spanish, Portuguese and West African languages. It began as a pidgin spoken primarily by enslaved Africans from various tribes in Suriname, who often did not have an African language in common. Sranan Tongo also became the language of communication between the slaves. So the slave owners could not understand the slaves, the slaves would often make escaping plans in Sranan Tongo. Under Dutch rule, the slaves were not permitted to learn or speak Dutch. As other ethnic groups, such as East Indians and Chinese, were brought to Suriname as indentured workers, Sranan Tongo became a lingua franca.

Until the middle of the 20th century, most written texts in Sranan, seen at the time as a low prestige language, used a spelling that was not standardized but based on Dutch orthography, recording an approximation of how Sranan words sound to Dutch ears. In view of the considerable differences between the phonologies of Sranan and Dutch, this was not a satisfactory situation. With the emergence of a movement striving for the emancipation of Sranan as a respectable language, the need for a phonology based orthography was felt. A more suitable orthography developed as an informal consensus from the publications of linguists studying Sranan and related creoles. For every day use, the Dutch based spelling remained common, while some literary authors adopted (variants of) the linguistic spelling. To end this situation, the Surinamese government commissioned a committee of linguists and writers to define a standard spelling, which was adopted and came into force in 1986. This standard basically followed the linguistic consensus. However, as the language is not taught in schools, while Dutch is, many speakers are not clearly aware of the principles on which this spelling is based and keep using a Dutchish, variant spelling.

Although the formal Dutch based educational system repressed the use of Sranan Tongo, in the past pejoratively dismissed as Taki Taki (literally meaning "talk talk" or "say say"), it gradually became more accepted by the establishment and wider society to speak it. During the 1980s, this language was popularized by publicly known speakers, including chairman Dési Bouterse, who often delivered national speeches in Sranan Tongo. Sranan Tongo remains widely used in Suriname and in Dutch urban areas populated by immigrants from Suriname. They especially use it in casual conversation, often freely mixing it with Dutch. Written code switching between Sranan Tongo and Dutch is also common in computer mediated communication. People often greet each other in Sranan Tongo by saying, for example, fa waka (how are you), instead of the more formal Dutch hoe gaat het (how is it going). In 2021, Sranan Tongo appeared for the first time in the Eurovision Song Contest in Jeangu Macrooy's song, "Birth of a New Age".