Ndyuka , also called Aukan, ''Okanisi, Ndyuka tongo'', Aukaans, ''Businenge Tongo'' (considered by some to be pejorative), Eastern Maroon Creole, or ''Nenge'' is a

creole language A creole language, or simply creole, is a stable form of contact language that develops from the process of different languages simplifying and mixing into a new form (often a pidgin), and then that form expanding and elaborating into a full-fl ...

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; i ...

and

French Guiana French Guiana, or Guyane in French, is an Overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department and region of France located on the northern coast of South America in the Guianas and the West Indies. Bordered by Suriname to the west ...

, spoken by the

Ndyuka people The Ndyuka people (also spelled 'Djuka') or Aukan people (''Okanisi''), are one of six Maroon peoples (formerly called "Bush Negroes", which has pejorative associations) in the Republic of Suriname and one of the Maroon peoples in French Gui ...

. The speakers are one of six Maroon peoples (formerly called "Bush Negroes") in the Republic of

and one of the Maroon peoples in

. Most of the 25 to 30 thousand speakers live in the interior of the country, which is a part of the country covered with

tropical rainforest Tropical rainforests are dense and warm rainforests with high rainfall typically found between 10° north and south of the Equator. They are a subset of the tropical forest biome that occurs roughly within the 28° latitudes (in the torrid zo ...

Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensive catalogue of languages. It w ...

list
two related languages
under the name ''Ndyuka'', the other being a dialect of Lutos.

Phonology

Ndyuka is based on English vocabulary, with influence from

African languages The number of languages natively spoken in Africa is variously estimated (depending on the delineation of language vs. dialect) at between 1,250 and 2,100, and by some counts at over 3,000. Nigeria alone has over 500 languages (according to SI ...

in its grammar and sounds. For example, the difference between ''na'' ("is") and ''ná'' ("isn't") is tone; words can start with consonants such as ''mb'' and ''ng'', and some speakers use the consonants '' kp'' and '' gb''. (For other Ndyuka speakers, these are pronounced ''kw'' and ''gw'', respectively. For example, the word "to leave" is ''gwé'' or ''gbé'', from English "go away".) A distinguishing characteristic of the language is the elimination of the letter ''r'', which is frequently used in

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 popu ...

. There are also influences from other languages. According to ''Creolization and Contact'' (2002), 46% of the words were from English, 16% from Dutch, 35% from Portuguese, and 3% from African languages.

Orthography

Modern

orthography An orthography is a set of convention (norm), conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, punctuation, Word#Word boundaries, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and Emphasis (typography), emphasis. Most national ...

differs from an older Dutch-based orthography in substituting ''u'' for ''oe'' and ''y'' for ''j''. The digraphs ''ty'' and ''dy'' are pronounced somewhat like the English '' ch'' and '' j'', respectively. Tone is infrequently written, but it is required for words such as ''ná'' ("isn't"). The syllabic Afaka script was devised for Ndyuka in 1908.

Latin alphabet

* A * B * D * E * F * G * H * I * K * L * M * N * O * P * S * T * U * W * Y * Z

Other letters

* dy ͡ʒ* ny �* sy �* ty ͡ʃ Long vowels are written with double letters (e.g. ⟨aa⟩ ː ⟨ee⟩ ː An acute accent is sometimes used for a high tone. (e.g. ⟨á⟩)

Dialects

The Ndyuka language has three dialects: proper Ndyuka (or ''Okanisi''),

Aluku The Aluku are a Bushinengue ethnic group living mainly on the riverbank in Maripasoula in southwest French Guiana. The group are sometimes called Boni, referring to the 18th-century leader, Boni (guerrilla leader), Bokilifu Boni. History The ...

, and Paramaccan, which are ethnically distinct.. Kwinti is distinct enough linguistically to be considered a separate language, but it is sometimes included as well under the name ''Ndyuka''. Ndyuka was also a basis of the Ndyuka-Tiriyó Pidgin.

Example

Here is an example of Ndyuka text, and its translation into English (showing the similitarities as well as the lexical evolution), adapted from ''Languages of the Guianas (SIL Publications)'': The language bears some similarity to Twi and other Akan languages spoken by the

Akan people The Akan () people are a kwa languages, Kwa group living primarily in present-day Ghana and in parts of Ivory Coast and Togo in West Africa. The Akan speak languages within the Central Tano languages, Central Tano branch of the Potou–Tano la ...

of Ghana.

Encoding

The

IETF language tag An IETF BCP 47 language tag is a standardized code that is used to identify human languages on the Internet. The tag structure has been standardized by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) in ''Best Current Practice (BCP) 47''; the subtags ...

s have registered: * as "Eastern Maroon Creole", "Businenge Tongo", "Nenge" ** for the Aluku language ** for the Ndyuka language ** for the Paramaccan language * for the Kwinti language

Notes

References

External links

Aukan–English Language Learning Library
{{Languages of Suriname Creoles of the Americas English language in the Americas