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Sranan Tongo
Sranan Tongo (Sranantongo, "Surinamese tongue", Sranan, Surinamese Creole) is an English-based creole language from Suriname, in South America, where it is the first or second language for 519,600 Surinamese people (approximately 80% of the population). It is also spoken in the Netherlands and across the Surinamese diaspora. It is considered both an unofficial national language and a ''lingua franca''. Sranan Tongo developed among enslaved Africans from Central and West Africa, especially along the Caribbean coastline, after contact with English planters and indentured workers from 1651–67. Its use expanded to the Dutch colonists who took over the territory in 1667 and decided to maintain the local language as a ''lingua franca''. Because the number of English colonists was massively reduced following the arrival of the Dutch, later additions to the language and the presence of African influences have made it distinct from other Afro-Caribbean creoles based on English. Hist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Suriname
Suriname, officially the Republic of Suriname, is a country in northern South America, also considered as part of the Caribbean and the West Indies. It is a developing country with a Human Development Index, high level of human development; its economy of Suriname, economy is heavily dependent on its abundant Natural resource, natural resources, namely bauxite, gold, petroleum, and Agriculture, agricultural products. Suriname is a member of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the United Nations, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the Organization of American States. Situated Tropics, slightly north of the equator, over 90% of its territory is covered by rainforest, List of countries by forest area (percentage), the highest proportion of forest cover in the world. Borders of Suriname, Suriname is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north, French Guiana to the east, Guyana to the west, and Brazil to the south. It is List of South American countries by area, the smalles ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lexifier
A lexifier is the language that provides the basis for the majority of a pidgin or creole language's vocabulary (lexicon). Often this language is also the dominant, or superstrate language, though this is not always the case, as can be seen in the historical Mediterranean Lingua Franca. In mixed languages, there are no superstrates or substrates, but instead two or more adstrates. One adstrate still contributes the majority of the lexicon in most cases, and would be considered the lexifier. However, it is not the dominant language, as there are none in the development of mixed languages, such as in Michif. Structure Pidgin and creole language names are often written as the following: Location spoken + Stage of Development + Lexifier language. For example: Malaysian Creole Portuguese, with Portuguese being the lexifier and the superstrate language at the time of the creole development. Often the autoglossonym, or the name the speakers give their contact language, is writt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kongo Language
Kongo or Kikongo is one of the Bantu languages spoken by the Kongo people living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the Republic of the Congo, Gabon, and Angola. It is a tonal language. The vast majority of present-day speakers live in Africa. There are roughly seven million native speakers of Kongo in the above-named countries. An estimated five million more speakers use it as a second language. Historically, it was spoken by many of those Africans who for centuries were taken captive, transported across the Atlantic, and sold as slaves in the Americas. For this reason, creolized forms of the language are found in ritual speech of Afro-American religions, especially in Brazil, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Suriname. It is also one of the sources of the Gullah language, which formed in the Low Country and Sea Islands of the United States Southeast. The Palenquero creole in Colombia is also related to Kong creole. Geographic distribution Kongo wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gen Language
Gen (also called Gɛ̃, Gɛn gbe, Gebe, Guin, Mina, Mina-Gen, and Popo) is a Gbe language spoken in the southeast of Togo in the Maritime Region. Like the other Gbe languages, Gen is a tonal language. It was misidentified as the 'Arda' language isolate of South America. History The Gen-Mina originated from Accra and Elmina in Ghana. The Mina from Elmina migrated because of the Denkyira wars of aggression, while the Gen came over from Accra after their defeat in the Akwamu wars. The two groups intermingled with the indigenous Ewe, resulting in their Ewe dialect having words borrowed from Fanti, Ga-Adangbe and various European languages. The Gen language is mutually intelligible with Ewe and is considered to be one of the many dialects of Ewe. There were 476,000 Gen-speakers in Togo in 2019, and 144,000 in Benin in 2021. Orthography The orthography is defined in the '' Alphabet des langues nationales'' of Benin. In the 1990 edition, Gen shared its alphabet with Waci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gun Language
Gun () is a language in the Gbe languages group. It is spoken by the Ogu people in Benin, as well as in south-western Nigeria. Gun is part of the Fon dialectal cluster within the Eastern Gbe languages; it is close to other Fon language, Fon dialects, especially its Agbome and Kpase varieties, as well as to the Maxi language, Mahi and Weme language, Weme (Ouémé) languages. It is used in some schools in the Ouémé Department of Benin. Gun is the second most spoken Languages of Benin, language in Benin. It is mainly spoken in the south of the country, in Porto-Novo, Sèmè-Kpodji, Bonou, Adjarra, Avrankou, Dangbo, Akpro-Missérété, Cotonou, and other cities where Ogu people live. It is also spoken by a minority of Ogu people in southwest Nigeria near the border with Benin, particularly Badagry, Maun, Tube. Phonology Consonants * Voiced plosives /b, É–/ fluctuate to voiced nasals [m, n] exclusively before nasal vowels, however; as a result of more recent loanwords, /b, É ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adja Language
The Aja language is a Gbe language spoken by the Aja people of Benin, Togo, Ghana, Nigeria and Gabon. In Gabon, they are mostly migrants. it is closely related to other Gbe languages The Gbe languages (pronounced ) form a cluster of about twenty related languages stretching across the area between eastern Ghana and western Nigeria. The total number of speakers of Gbe languages is between four and eight million. The most widel ... such as Ewe, Mina, Fon, and Phla Phera. Adja is the mother tribe from which the other Gbe people are descended. Phonology Consonants * Voiced consonants /, , / are heard as nasal sonorant sounds , when followed by a nasal vowel. * // is heard as a rhotic trill [] when after alveolar, retroflex or post-alveolar consonants. * Sounds // and // are heard as post-alveolar [], [] when preceding //. * Approximant sounds /, / may also be nasalized as [, ] when preceding or following nasal vowels. * Some linguists have also attested the nasal so ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ewe Language
Ewe (''EÊ‹e'' or ''EÊ‹egbe'' ) is a language spoken by approximately 5 million people in West Africa, mainly in Ghana and Togo. Ewe is part of a group of related languages commonly called the Gbe languages. The other major Gbe language is Fon, which is mainly spoken in Benin. Like many African languages, Ewe is tonal as well as a possible member of the Niger-Congo family. The German Africanist Diedrich Hermann Westermann published many dictionaries and grammars of Ewe and several other Gbe languages. Other linguists who have worked on Ewe and closely related languages include Gilbert Ansre (tone, syntax), Herbert Stahlke (morphology, tone), Nick Clements (tone, syntax), Roberto Pazzi (anthropology, lexicography), Felix K. Ameka (semantics, cognitive linguistics), Alan Stewart Duthie (semantics, phonetics), Hounkpati B. Capo (phonology, phonetics), Enoch Aboh (syntax), and Chris Collins (syntax). Dialects Some of the commonly named Ewe ('Vhe') dialects are ''AÅ‹ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fon Language
Fon (, ) also known as Dahomean is the language of the Fon people. It belongs to the Gbe group within the larger Atlantic–Congo family. It is primarily spoken in Benin Republic, as well as in Nigeria and Togo by approximately 2.3 million speakers. Like the other Gbe languages, Fon is an isolating language with a SVO basic word order. Cultural and legal status In Benin, French is the official language, and Fon and other indigenous languages, including Yom and Yoruba, are classified as national languages. Dialects The standardized Fon language is part of the Fon cluster of languages inside the Eastern Gbe languages. Hounkpati B Christophe Capo groups Agbome, Kpase, Gun, Maxi and Weme (Ouémé) in the Fon dialect cluster, although other clusterings are suggested. Standard Fon is the primary target of language planning efforts in Benin, although separate efforts exists for Gun, Gen, and other languages of the country. Phonology Vowels Fon has seven oral vowel pho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lexicon
A lexicon (plural: lexicons, rarely lexica) is the vocabulary of a language or branch of knowledge (such as nautical or medical). In linguistics, a lexicon is a language's inventory of lexemes. The word ''lexicon'' derives from Greek word (), neuter of () meaning 'of or for words'. Linguistic theories generally regard human languages as consisting of two parts: a lexicon, essentially a catalogue of a language's words (its wordstock); and a grammar, a system of rules which allow for the combination of those words into meaningful sentences. The lexicon is also thought to include bound morphemes, which cannot stand alone as words (such as most affixes). In some analyses, compound words and certain classes of idiomatic expressions, collocations and other phrasemes are also considered to be part of the lexicon. Dictionaries are lists of the lexicon, in alphabetical order, of a given language; usually, however, bound morphemes are not included. Size and organization Items ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indigenous Peoples In Suriname
Indigenous peoples in Suriname, Native Surinamese, or Amerindian Surinamese, are Surinamese people who are of Indigenous peoples in South America, Indigenous ancestry. They comprise approximately 3.5% of Suriname's population of 612,985. Contemporary groups * Akurio people, Akurio, Tapanahoni and Sipaliwini River, Sipaliwini rivers, Kwamalasamutu"Suriname." ''Ethnologue.'' Retrieved 8 Dec 2013. * Arawak people, Arawak (Lokono Arawak, Lokono), Suriname, French Guiana, Guyana, Venezuela * Kalina people, Kalina, Brazil, Guyana, French Guiana, Suriname, Venezuela * * Saloema (Taruma), Kwamalasamutu on Sipaliwini river, Brazil, Guyana * Sikiana people, Sikiana, Kwamalasamutu on Sipaliwini river, Brazil * Tiriyó people, Tiriyó, Tapanahoni River, Sipa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Africanism
Africanisms refers to characteristics of African culture that can be traced through societal practices and institutions of the African diaspora. Throughout history, the dispersed descendants of Africans have retained many forms of their ancestral African culture. Also, common throughout history is the misunderstanding of these remittances and their meanings. The term usually refers to the cultural and linguistic practices of West and Central Africans who were transported to the Americas during the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Africanisms have influenced the cultures of diverse countries in North and South America and the Caribbean through language, music, dance, food, animal husbandry, medicine, and folklore. Language American English Africanisms are incorporated in American English. Although physical artifacts could not be kept by slaves because of their enslaved status, "Subtler linguistic and communicative artefacts were sustained and embellished by the Africans’ cr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Relexification
In linguistics, relexification is a mechanism of language change by which one language changes much or all of its lexicon, including basic vocabulary, to the lexicon of another language, without drastically changing the relexified language's grammar. The term is principally used to describe pidgins, creoles, and mixed languages. Relexification is not synonymous with lexical borrowing, by which a language merely ''supplements'' its basic vocabulary with loanwords from another language. Language creation and relexification hypothesis Relexification is a form of language interference in which a pidgin, a creole or a mixed language takes nearly all of its lexicon from a superstrate or a target language while its grammar comes from the substrate or source language or, according to universalist theories, arises from universal principles of simplification and grammaticalization. The language from which the lexicon is derived is called the "lexifier". Michif, Media Lengua, and Lanc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
