page_title: Sranan Tongo
section_title: Origins
hierarchical_section_title: Sranan Tongo / Origins
caption_attribution_description: Slovenščina: Dežela kozolcev (Šentrupert): vpis v surinamščinii v knjigi gostov (gostja iz Surinama). English: The Land of Hayracks (Šentrupert, Slovenia): a message in the guestbook written in Sranan Tongo (a lady from Suriname, South America). Text translation: I have arrived at a beautiful place. A place which caught my eyes, my heart. They call it place of grass. One day I will return again. Please be well. God bless you!!
context_page_description: Sranan Tongo is an English-based creole language that is spoken as a lingua franca by approximately 500,000 people in Suriname.
  Developed originally among slaves from West Africa and English colonists, its use as a lingua franca expanded after the Dutch took over the colony in 1667, and 85% of the vocabulary comes from Dutch. It became the common language also among the indigenous peoples and languages of contract workers imported by the Dutch, including speakers of Javanese, Sarnami Hindustani, Saramaccan, and varieties of Chinese. Sranan Tongo is widely spoken in Surinam and in places where its emigrants have settled, such as the Netherlands, the United States, and the United Kingdom.
context_section_description: 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 as mostly an English-based creole language, because of the early influence of English colonists here, who imported numerous Africans as slaves for the plantations. After the Dutch takeover in 1667 (when they ceded New Netherland in North America to the English), a substantial overlay of words were adopted from the Dutch language.
  Sranan Tongo's lexicon is a fusion of mostly English grammar
  and Dutch vocabulary (~85%), plus some words from 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 and the slaveowners. 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 contract workers, Sranan Tongo became a lingua franca.
caption: Message written in Sranan Tongo in the guestbook in the Land of Hayracks, an open-air museum in Slovenia (April 2016)
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