Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Suriname (/ ˈ s ʊər ɪ n æ m,-n ɑː m / ⓘ SOOR-in-A(H)M, Dutch: [syːriˈnaːmə] ⓘ, Sranan Tongo:), officially the Republic of Suriname (Dutch: Republiek Suriname [reːpyˈblik syːriˈnaːmə]), is a country in northern South America, sometimes considered part of the Caribbean and the West Indies.
Sranan Tongo's lexicon is a fusion of mostly English [4] 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, an English-based creole language, is a widely used lingua franca. Most Surinamese are descendants of slaves and indentured labourers brought from Africa and Asia by the Dutch. Suriname is highly diverse, with no ethnic group forming a majority; proportionally, its Muslim and Hindu populations are some of the largest in the Americas.
The early history of Suriname dates from 3000 BCE when Native Americans first inhabited the area. The Dutch acquired Suriname from the English, and European settlement in any numbers dates from the 17th century, when it was a plantation colony utilizing slavery for sugar cultivation.
Suriname – sovereign state on the northeastern Atlantic coast of South America, and the smallest country on that continent. It was long inhabited by indigenous tribal peoples with diverse cultures, before being explored and contested by European powers from the 16th century, and eventually coming under Dutch rule in the late 17th century.
Paramaribo (UK: / ˌ p ær ə ˈ m ær ɪ b oʊ / PARR-ə-MARR-ib-oh, US: / ˌ p ɑːr ə ˈ m ɑːr ɪ b oʊ / PAR-ə-MAR-ib-oh, Dutch: [ˌpaːraːˈmaːriboː] ⓘ) is the capital and largest city of Suriname, located on the banks of the Suriname River in the Paramaribo District.
Kwinti is an English-based creole of Suriname closely related to Ndyuka. [2] The language has less than 300 speakers, [3] and split from Plantation Creole which is nowadays known as Sranan Tongo in the middle 18th century. [4]
Flag of Suriname (1959–1975) Although the colony has always been officially known as Surinam or Suriname, in both Dutch [2] and English, [3] the colony was often unofficially and semi-officially referred to as Dutch Guiana (Dutch: Nederlands Guiana) in the 19th and 20th century, in an analogy to British Guiana and French Guiana.