Saramacca is a district of Suriname , in the north. Saramacca's capital city is Groningen , with other towns and cities including Batavia , Kampong Baroe , Uitkijk , Maho and Boskamp . Saramacca has a population of 17,480 and an area of 3,636 km.
111-511: Saramaka is also the name of a group of Maroons who established communities along the Saramacca River having fled slavery . The district was founded in 1983, but the history dates back to 1790 when the first plantation was opened. Until 1936, Saramacca could only be access by boat , but with the construction of a road to Paramaribo , which is now part of the East-West Link , Saramacca
222-737: A hydroelectric project built to supply electricity for an aluminum smelter . Today, about one-third of the Saramaka live in French Guiana, most having migrated there since 1990 after warfare in Suriname. The Saramaka and the Matawai (in central Suriname) speak variants of a creole language called Saramaccan . The Ndyuka, Paramaka, and Aluku, (in eastern Suriname), as well as the several hundred Kwinti, speak variants of another creole language, Ndyuka . Both languages are historically related to Sranan Tongo ,
333-593: A state of war and plunder. Their reintegration into Saramaka (and Ndyuka) society has been difficult, though their migration to the coast and French Guiana has provided a safety valve , if not for the receiving areas. Every aspect of Saramaka life is based in various religious beliefs. Such decisions as where to clear a garden or build a house, whether to undertake a trip, or how to deal with theft or adultery are made in consultation with village deities, ancestors, forest spirits, and snake gods . The means of communication with these powers vary from spirit possession and
444-729: A 17th-century koiné French extant in Paris , the French Atlantic harbors, and the nascent French colonies. Supporters of this hypothesis suggest that the non-Creole French dialects still spoken in many parts of the Americas share mutual descent from this single koiné. These dialects are found in Canada (mostly in Québec and in Acadian communities), Louisiana , Saint-Barthélemy and as isolates in other parts of
555-461: A European language, often indentured servants whose language would be far from the standard in the first place, interacted extensively with non-European slaves , absorbing certain words and features from the slaves' non-European native languages, resulting in a heavily basilectalized version of the original language. These servants and slaves would come to use the creole as an everyday vernacular, rather than merely in situations in which contact with
666-431: A European-style grid pattern , used throughout larger South American cities. In many cases they have been located far from the riverside, making life difficult for the occupants.) Horticultural camps , which include permanent houses and shrines, are located several hours by canoe from each village. They are exploited by small groups of women related through matrilineal ties. Due to their matrilineal ties, many women have
777-505: A few days at a time in the matrilineal (home) village of a wife. Each house belongs to an individual man or woman, but most social interaction occurs outdoors. The men in each cluster of several houses, whether bee members or temporary visitors, eat meals together. The women of these same clusters, whether bee members or resident wives of bee men, spend a great deal of time in each other's company, often farming together as well. Matrilineal principles, mediated by divination, determine
888-535: A house in their own birth village, another in their horticultural camp, and a third in their husband's village. Men divide their time among several different houses, built at various times for themselves and for their wives. Traditional Saramaka houses are compact, wide enough to tie a hammock and not much longer from front to back; with walls of planks and woven palm fronds , and traditionally roofs of thatch or, increasingly, of corrugated metal . They do not have windows but often have elaborately carved facades . Since
999-404: A keen interest in the history of their formative years; they preserve their very rich oral tradition . Innovative scholarly research since the late 20th century has brought together oral and archival accounts in new histories. Like the other Suriname Maroons, the Saramaka lived almost as a state-within-a-state until the mid-20th century, when the pace of outside encroachments increased. During
1110-453: A more recent ancestress. Several lineages from a single clan constitute the core of every village. The matrilineal clans ( lo ) own land, based on claims staked out in the early 18th century as the original Maroons fled southward to freedom . Hunting and gathering rights belong to clan members collectively. Within the clan, temporary rights to land use for farming are negotiated by village headmen. The establishment of transmigration villages in
1221-737: A more recent view, Parkvall (2000) . Because of the sociohistoric similarities amongst many (but by no means all) of the creoles, the Atlantic slave trade and the plantation system of the European colonies have been emphasized as factors by linguists such as McWhorter (1999) . One class of creoles might start as pidgins , rudimentary second languages improvised for use between speakers of two or more non-intelligible native languages. Keith Whinnom (in Hymes (1971) ) suggests that pidgins need three languages to form, with one (the superstrate) being clearly dominant over
SECTION 10
#17328557326651332-479: A pidgin: McWhorter argues that the absence of these three features is predictable in languages that were born recently of a pidgin, since learning them would constitute a distinct challenge to the non-native speaker. Over the course of generations, however, such features would be expected to gradually (re-)appear, and therefore "many creoles would harbor departures from the Prototype identifiable as having happened after
1443-503: A process known as nativization . The pidgin -creole life cycle was studied by American linguist Robert Hall in the 1960s. Some linguists, such as Derek Bickerton, posit that creoles share more grammatical similarities with each other than with the languages from which they are phylogenetically derived. However, there is no widely accepted theory that would account for those perceived similarities. Moreover, no grammatical feature has been shown to be specific to creoles. Many of
1554-453: A rationale of lexical enrichment. Universalist models stress the intervention of specific general processes during the transmission of language from generation to generation and from speaker to speaker. The process invoked varies: a general tendency towards semantic transparency , first- language learning driven by universal process, or a general process of discourse organization . Bickerton's language bioprogram theory , proposed in
1665-407: A river, for water, transportation and fishing, they are constructed of an irregular arrangement of small houses, open-sided structures, domesticated trees, occasional chicken houses, various shrines , and scattered patches of bush. (In contrast, the so-called transmigration villages, built to house the 6,000 Saramaka displaced by the hydroelectric project, range up to 2,000 people. They are laid out in
1776-405: A second language for informal conversation. As demonstrated by the fate of many replaced European languages (such as Etruscan , Breton , and Venetian ), the influence of the substrate on the official speech is often limited to pronunciation and a modest number of loanwords. The substrate might even disappear altogether without leaving any trace. However, there is dispute over the extent to which
1887-405: A simpler grammar than Saramaccan , the language McWhorter uses as a showcase for his theory. The same objections were raised by Wittmann in his 1999 debate with McWhorter. The lack of progress made in defining creoles in terms of their morphology and syntax has led scholars such as Robert Chaudenson , Salikoko Mufwene , Michel DeGraff , and Henri Wittmann to question the value of creole as
1998-490: A single Mediterranean Lingua Franca , via a West African Pidgin Portuguese of the seventeenth century, relexified in the so-called "slave factories " of Western Africa that were the source of the Atlantic slave trade . This theory was originally formulated by Hugo Schuchardt in the late nineteenth century and popularized in the late 1950s and early 1960s by Taylor, Whinnom, Thompson, and Stewart. However, this hypothesis
2109-444: A small child, it is also sometimes called baby talk . Arends, Muysken & Smith (1995) suggest that four different processes are involved in creating Foreigner Talk: This could explain why creole languages have much in common, while avoiding a monogenetic model. However, Hinnenkamp (1984) , in analyzing German Foreigner Talk, claims that it is too inconsistent and unpredictable to provide any model for language learning. While
2220-448: A speaker of the superstrate was necessary. The English term creole comes from French créole , which is cognate with the Spanish term criollo and Portuguese crioulo , all descending from the verb criar ('to breed' or 'to raise'), all coming from Latin creare ' to produce, create ' . The specific sense of the term was coined in the 16th and 17th century, during
2331-449: A specific cause that can be determined only through divination. The causes revealed vary from a lineage kúnu to sorcery , from a broken taboo to an ancestor's displeasure. Once the cause is known, rites are carried out to appease the offended god or ancestor (or otherwise right the social imbalance). Since the 1960s, Western mission clinics and hospitals have been used by most Saramaka as a supplement to their own healing practices. During
SECTION 20
#17328557326652442-445: A typological class; they argue that creoles are structurally no different from any other language, and that creole is a sociohistoric concept – not a linguistic one – encompassing displaced populations and slavery. Thomason & Kaufman (1988) spell out the idea of creole exceptionalism, claiming that creole languages are an instance of nongenetic language change due to language shift with abnormal transmission. Gradualists question
2553-439: A variety of crops, choosing which to develop to continue preferred qualities. They process the food for meals and storage of foods such as peanuts. They use parts of plants to make some needed goods. The men conduct hunting of game with shotguns ; they also do most of the fishing as well. Men have long devoted a large portion of their adult years to earning money in work in coastal Suriname or French Guiana. This allows them to buy
2664-423: A year, culminating in the final passage of the deceased to the status of ancestor. The initial rites, which are carried out over a period of one week to three months, depending on the importance of the deceased, end with the burial of the corpse in an elaborately constructed coffin filled with personal belongings. These rites include divination with the coffin (to consult the spirit of the deceased) by carrying it on
2775-440: Is egalitarian , with kinship forming the backbone of social organization . No social or occupational classes are distinguished. Elders are accorded special respect and ancestors are consulted, through divination , on a daily basis. Protestant missionary schools have existed in some villages since the 18th century. State elementary schools came to most villages only in the 1960s. Schools ceased to function completely during
2886-521: Is a fishing village. The district is known for its birds , with ornithologists and birdwatchers coming from all over the world to study and admire Saramacca's toucans , parrots and cocks-of-the-rock . Saramacca is home to three nature reserves: Coppename Monding Nature Reserve (12,000 hectares), Boven Coesewijne Nature Reserve (27,000 hectares) and the Noord Saramacca [ nl ] Special Control Area (88,400 hectares). Saramacca
2997-484: Is a stable natural 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-fledged language with native speakers , all within a fairly brief period. While the concept is similar to that of a mixed or hybrid language , creoles are often characterized by a tendency to systematize their inherited grammar (e.g., by eliminating irregularities or regularizing
3108-552: Is a universal phenomenon, not limited to the European colonial period, and an important aspect of language evolution. Other scholars, such as Salikoko Mufwene , argue that pidgins and creoles arise independently under different circumstances, and that a pidgin need not always precede a creole nor a creole evolve from a pidgin. Pidgins, according to Mufwene, emerged in trade colonies among "users who preserved their native vernaculars for their day-to-day interactions". Creoles, meanwhile, developed in settlement colonies in which speakers of
3219-536: Is called a creolist. The precise number of creole languages is not known, particularly as many are poorly attested or documented. About one hundred creole languages have arisen since 1500. These are predominantly based on European languages such as English and French due to the European Age of Discovery and the Atlantic slave trade that arose at that time. With the improvements in ship-building and navigation , traders had to learn to communicate with people around
3330-400: Is devoted to their appeasement. The Saramaka believe that all evil originates in human action; not only does each misfortune, illness, or death stem from a specific past misdeed, but every offense, whether against people or gods, has eventual consequences. The ignoble acts of the dead intrude daily on the lives of the living; any illness or misfortune calls for divination, which quickly reveals
3441-667: Is divided into 6 resorts ( ressorten ): Saramaka The Saramaka , Saamaka or Saramacca are one of six Maroon peoples (formerly called "Bush Negroes") in the Republic of Suriname and one of the Maroon peoples in French Guiana . In 2007, the Saramaka won a ruling by the Inter-American Court for Human Rights supporting their land rights in Suriname for lands they have historically occupied, over national government claims. It
Saramacca District - Misplaced Pages Continue
3552-428: Is established early, with children taking on responsibility for gender-typed adult tasks as soon as they are physically able. Girls often marry by age 15, whereas boys are more often in their twenties when they take their first wife. A woman is required to go into seclusion during her menstrual cycle. The cycle is considered a time of transgression and destructive of village order. Women are not allowed to perform many of
3663-437: Is found through negotiation, often with a strong role being played by gods and ancestors. In a type of reconciliation justice, guilty parties are usually required to pay for their misdeeds with material offerings to the lineage of the offended person. In the 18th century people found guilty of witchcraft were sometimes burned at the stake. Today, men caught in flagrante delicto with the wife of another man are either beaten by
3774-463: Is named, individualized, and given specific relationships to living people. Intimately involved in the ongoing events of daily life, these beings communicate to humans mainly through divination and spirit possession. Kúnus are the avenging spirits of people or gods who were wronged during their lifetime and who pledge themselves to eternally tormenting the matrilineal descendants and close matrilineal kinsmen of their offender. Much of Saramaka ritual life
3885-416: Is not determined by the calendar, but rather regulated by the occurrence of particular misfortunes, interpreted through divination. The most important ceremonies include those surrounding funerals and the appeasement of ancestors, public curing rites, rituals in honor of kúnus (in particular snake gods and forest spirits), and the installation of political officials. Every case of illness is believed to have
3996-616: Is now not widely accepted, since it relies on all creole-speaking slave populations being based on the same Portuguese-based creole, despite no to very little historical exposure to Portuguese for many of these populations, no strong direct evidence for this claim, and with Portuguese leaving almost no trace on the lexicon of most of them, with the similarities in grammar explainable by analogous processes of loss of inflection and grammatical forms not common to European and West African languages. For example, Bickerton (1977) points out that relexification postulates too many improbabilities and that it
4107-473: Is typologically closer to French than to other Germanic languages. Thus the claimed similarities between creoles may be mere consequences of similar parentage, rather than characteristic features of all creoles. There are a variety of theories on the origin of creole languages, all of which attempt to explain the similarities among them. Arends, Muysken & Smith (1995) outline a fourfold classification of explanations regarding creole genesis: In addition to
4218-404: Is unlikely that a language "could be disseminated round the entire tropical zone, to peoples of widely differing language background, and still preserve a virtually complete identity in its grammatical structure wherever it took root, despite considerable changes in its phonology and virtually complete changes in its lexicon". Proposed by Hancock (1985) for the origin of English-based creoles of
4329-596: The Americas , western Africa , Goa along the west of India , and along Southeast Asia up to Indonesia , Singapore , Macau , Hong Kong , the Philippines , Malaysia , Mauritius , Réunion, Seychelles and Oceania . Many of those creoles are now extinct, but others still survive in the Caribbean , the north and east coasts of South America ( The Guyanas ), western Africa , Australia (see Australian Kriol language ),
4440-783: The Matawai , Paramaka , Aluku , and Kwinti (who together number some 25,000). Since their escape from slavery in the 17th and 18th centuries, the Saramaka have lived chiefly along the Upper Suriname River and its tributaries, the Gaánlío and the Pikílío. Since the 1960s, they also live along the Lower Suriname River in villages constructed by the colonial government and Alcoa , a major aluminum company. They were relocated to allow flooding of approximately half their tribal territory for
4551-772: The Ndyuka ethnography of Dutch scholars Bonno Thoden van Velzen and his partner Ineke van Wetering . Edward C. Green , an American medical anthropologist, conducted fieldwork among the Matawais between 1970 and 1973, with intermittent visits since. His doctoral dissertation focused on changes underway then in the matrilineal kinship and indigenous spiritual belief systems. He has become known for his work on processes related to AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases, especially in African nations, and making use of indigenous healers. Creole language A creole language , or simply creole ,
Saramacca District - Misplaced Pages Continue
4662-545: The Philippines (see Chavacano ), Island Countries such as Mauritius and Seychelles and in the Indian Ocean . Atlantic Creole languages are based on European languages with elements from African and possibly Amerindian languages . Indian Ocean Creole languages are based on European languages with elements from Malagasy and possibly other Asian languages. There are, however, creoles like Nubi and Sango that are derived solely from non-European languages. Because of
4773-482: The comparative method in historical linguistics and in creolistics . Because of social, political, and academic changes brought on by decolonization in the second half of the 20th century, creole languages have experienced revivals in the past few decades. They are increasingly being used in print and film, and in many cases, their community prestige has improved dramatically. In fact, some have been standardized, and are used in local schools and universities around
4884-572: The languages of Europe , than among broader groups that include also creoles based on non- Indo-European languages (like Nubi or Sango). French-based creole languages in turn are more similar to each other (and to varieties of French) than to other European-based creoles. It was observed, in particular, that definite articles are mostly prenominal in English-based creole languages and English whereas they are generally postnominal in French creoles and in
4995-470: The variety of French that was exported to what is now Quebec in the 17th and 18th century . Moreover, the European languages which gave rise to the creole languages of European colonies all belong to the same subgroup of Western Indo-European and have highly convergent grammars; to the point that Whorf joined them into a single Standard Average European language group. French and English are particularly close, since English, through extensive borrowing,
5106-782: The 1960s led to land shortages in certain regions. The success of the Saramakas in their lawsuit against the government of Suriname will now permit them to manage their lands with less outside interference. Complex marriage prohibitions (including bee exogamy ) and preferences are negotiated through divination . Demographic imbalance, owing to labor migration, permits widespread polygyny . Although co-wives hold equal status, relations between them are expected to be adversarial. The Saramaka treat marriage as an ongoing courtship , with frequent exchanges of gifts such as men's woodcarving and women's decorative sewing. Although many women live primarily in their husband's village, men never spend more than
5217-515: The 1980s, remains the main universalist theory. Bickerton claims that creoles are inventions of the children growing up on newly founded plantations . Around them, they only heard pidgins spoken, without enough structure to function as natural languages ; and the children used their own innate linguistic capacities to transform the pidgin input into a full-fledged language. The alleged common features of all creoles would then stem from those innate abilities being universal. The last decades have seen
5328-445: The Americas. Approaches under this hypothesis are compatible with gradualism in change and models of imperfect language transmission in koiné genesis. The Foreigner Talk (FT) hypothesis argues that a pidgin or creole language forms when native speakers attempt to simplify their language in order to address speakers who do not know their language at all. Because of the similarities found in this type of speech and speech directed to
5439-402: The European dialect origin hypothesis and the universalist models of language transmission. Theories focusing on the substrate, or non-European, languages attribute similarities amongst creoles to the similarities of African substrate languages. These features are often assumed to be transferred from the substrate language to the creole or to be preserved invariant from the substrate language in
5550-628: The Governor of French Guiana and the Granman (paramount chief) of the Saramaka, signed an official accord that the Saramaka could stay in French Guiana under the legal authority of the Granman. The accords have never been rescinded and allow the tribe entry to French Guiana without the risk of deportation. Traditional villages, which average 100 to 200 residents, consist of a core of matrilineal kin plus some wives and children of lineage men. Always located near
5661-463: The Saramaka people against the government of Suriname. In this landmark decision, which establishes a precedent for all Maroon and indigenous peoples in the Americas, the Saramaka were granted collective rights to the lands on which their ancestors had lived since the early 18th century, including rights to decide about the exploitation of natural resources such as timber and gold within that territory. In addition, they were granted compensation from
SECTION 50
#17328557326655772-469: The Suriname Civil War of the 1980s and 1990s, most of these facilities were destroyed. They have only been very partially restored since. The dead play an active role in the lives of the living. Ancestor shrines – several to a village – are the site of frequent prayers and libations, as the dead are consulted about ongoing village problems. A death occasions a series of complex rituals that lasts about
5883-448: The Suriname civil war of the late 1980s and have been rebuilt only partially since. Since the 18th-century treaty, the Saramaka have had a government-approved paramount chief ( gaamá ), as well as a series of headmen ( kabiteni ) and assistant headmen ( basiá ). Traditionally, the role of these officials in political and social control was exercised in a context replete with oracles , spirit possession , and other forms of divination. As
5994-528: The Suriname civil war, the Saramaka have built an increasing number of houses in coastal, Western style. They use concrete as well as wood, and feature windows and more expansive floor plans . For more than two centuries, the economy has been based on full exploitation of the forest environment and on periodic work trips by men to the coast to bring back Western goods. For subsistence, the Saramaka depend on shifting ( swidden ) horticulture done mostly by women, with hunting and fishing done by men, supplemented by
6105-552: The Suriname river. Such economic activities as prostitution, casino gambling, and drug smuggling became major industries in coastal Suriname and accompanied the miners to the interior. In the mid-1990s, the Association of Saramaka Authorities filed a complaint before the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights to protect their land rights . In November 2007, the Inter-American Court for Human Rights ruled in favor of
6216-568: The West Indies, the domestic origin hypothesis argues that, towards the end of the 16th century, English-speaking traders began to settle in the Gambia and Sierra Leone rivers as well as in neighboring areas such as the Bullom and Sherbro coasts. These settlers intermarried with the local population leading to mixed populations, and, as a result of this intermarriage, an English pidgin was created. This pidgin
6327-564: The Western goods considered essential to life in their home villages, such as shotguns and powder , tools, pots, cloth, hammocks, soap, kerosene , and rum . During the second half of the 20th century, small stores were established in many villages, making more goods available. Outboard motors , transistor radios , and tape recorders became common consumer items. Today, cell phones are ubiquitous: both men and women have greatly increased communication with Paramaribo . New economic opportunities in
6438-403: The coast. Body cicatrization , practiced by virtually all Saramaka women as late as the 1970s and 1980s, had become relatively uncommon by the start of the 21st century. Numerous genres of singing, dance, drumming, and tale telling continue to be a vibrant part of Saramaka culture. Once the men have cleared and burned the fields, horticulture is mainly women's work. Women cultivate and process
6549-643: The colonial power, e.g. to distinguish españoles criollos (people born in the colonies from Spanish ancestors) from españoles peninsulares (those born in the Iberian Peninsula, i.e. Spain). However, in Brazil the term was also used to distinguish between negros crioulos (blacks born in Brazil from African slave ancestors) and negros africanos (born in Africa). Over time, the term and its derivatives (Creole, Kréol, Kreyol, Kreyòl , Kriol, Krio , etc.) lost
6660-427: The conjugation of otherwise irregular verbs). Like any language, creoles are characterized by a consistent system of grammar , possess large stable vocabularies, and are acquired by children as their native language. These three features distinguish a creole language from a pidgin. Creolistics, or creology, is the study of creole languages and, as such, is a subfield of linguistics . Someone who engages in this study
6771-480: The consultation of oracle-bundles, to the interpretation of dreams. Gods and spirits, which are a constant presence in daily life, are also honored through frequent prayers , libations , feasts, and dances. The rituals surrounding birth, death, and other life passages are extensive, as are those relating to more mundane activities, from hunting a tapir to planting a rice field. Today about 25 per cent of Saramaka are nominal Christians – mainly Moravian (some since
SECTION 60
#17328557326656882-568: The creole language of coastal Suriname. About 50 percent of the Saramaccan lexicon derives from various West and Central African languages, 20 percent from English (the language of the original colonists in Suriname), 20 percent from Portuguese (the language of the overseers and slave masters on many Suriname plantations ), and the remaining 10 percent from Amerindian languages and Dutch (the latter were later colonists). Although lexically different,
6993-433: The creole through a process of relexification : the substrate language replaces the native lexical items with lexical material from the superstrate language while retaining the native grammatical categories. The problem with this explanation is that the postulated substrate languages differ amongst themselves and with creoles in meaningful ways. Bickerton (1981) argues that the number and diversity of African languages and
7104-511: The creole was born" (McWhorter 2018). As one example, McWhorter (2013) notes that the creole Sranan , which has existed for centuries in a diglossic relationship with Dutch, has borrowed some Dutch verbs containing the ver- prefix ( fer- in Sranan) and whose meaning is not analyzable; for instance the pair morsu ' to soil ' , fermorsu ' to squander ' . McWhorter claims that these three properties characterize any language that
7215-454: The creoles known today arose in the last 500 years, as a result of the worldwide expansion of European maritime power and trade in the Age of Discovery , which led to extensive European colonial empires . Like most non-official and minority languages, creoles have generally been regarded in popular opinion as degenerate variants or dialects of their parent languages. Because of that prejudice, many of
7326-424: The creoles that arose in the European colonies, having been stigmatized, have become extinct . However, political and academic changes in recent decades have improved the status of creoles, both as living languages and as object of linguistic study. Some creoles have even been granted the status of official or semi-official languages of particular political territories. Linguists now recognize that creole formation
7437-441: The deceased has passed out of the realm of the living into that of the ancestors. The Saramaka people beyond Gaan Lio lived in relative isolation and as an uncontacted people group from the time of their ancestor's escape from slavery in the eighteenth century. In the latter part of 1993, a local, independent missionary by the name of Steve Groseclose and a small group of Saramaka men from other less remote villages ventured beyond
7548-445: The emergence of some new questions about the nature of creoles: in particular, the question of how complex creoles are and the question of whether creoles are indeed "exceptional" languages. Some features that distinguish creole languages from noncreoles have been proposed (by Bickerton, for example). John McWhorter has proposed the following list of features as defining the creole prototype , that is, any language born recently of
7659-452: The evolution of African-American Vernacular English (AAVE). In the American education system, as well as in the past, the use of the word ebonics to refer to AAVE mirrors the historical negative connotation of the word creole . According to their external history, four types of creoles have been distinguished: plantation creoles, fort creoles, maroon creoles, and creolized pidgins. By
7770-472: The first trips into the area. Ethnography among the Saramaka was first conducted by Americans Melville and Frances Herskovits (during two summers in 1928 and 1929). Americans Richard and Sally Price have also studied the people (intermittently between 1966 and the present: in Suriname until 1986, and in French Guiana thereafter). This late-20th century fieldwork complements the modern fieldwork carried out among other groups of Suriname Maroons, such as
7881-428: The former gave rise to the latter. The imperfect L2 ( second language ) learning hypothesis claims that pidgins are primarily the result of the imperfect L2 learning of the dominant lexifier language by the slaves. Research on naturalistic L2 processes has revealed a number of features of "interlanguage systems" that are also seen in pidgins and creoles: Imperfect L2 learning is compatible with other approaches, notably
7992-478: The generally low status of the Creole peoples in the eyes of prior European colonial powers, creole languages have generally been regarded as "degenerate" languages, or at best as rudimentary "dialects" of the politically dominant parent languages. Because of this, the word "creole" was generally used by linguists in opposition to "language", rather than as a qualifier for it. Another factor that may have contributed to
8103-409: The generic meaning and became the proper name of many distinct ethnic groups that developed locally from immigrant communities. Originally, therefore, the term "creole language" meant the speech of any of those creole peoples . As a consequence of colonial European trade patterns, most of the known European-based creole languages arose in coastal areas in the equatorial belt around the world, including
8214-417: The gold industry – mining for men, prostitution for women – are being exploited. Saramaka society is firmly based on a matrilineal kinship system . A clan ( lo ) – often several thousand individuals – consists of the matrilineal descendants of an original band of escaped slaves. Children are considered born into this clan. It is subdivided into lineages ( bee ) – usually 50 to 150 people – descended from
8325-453: The government for damages caused by previous timber grants made to Chinese companies. This was paid into a special development fund, which is now managed by the Saramaka. The Saramaka maroons were originally living in Suriname . They first came to French Guiana in the 19th century as freighters to the interior . During the gold rush, their services became important for the economy. In 1883,
8436-503: The grammar resembles that of the other Atlantic creoles and derives from West African models. The ancestors of the Saramaka were among those Africans sold as plantation slaves to Europeans in Suriname in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Coming from a variety of West and Central African peoples speaking many different languages, they escaped into the dense rainforest – individually, in small groups, and sometimes in great collective rebellions. For nearly 100 years, they fought from
8547-598: The grammar structure. However, in creoles, the core lexicon often has mixed origin, and the grammar is largely original. For these reasons, the issue of which language is the parent of a creole – that is, whether a language should be classified as a "French creole", "Portuguese creole" or "English creole", etc. – often has no definitive answer, and can become the topic of long-lasting controversies, where social prejudices and political considerations may interfere with scientific discussion. The terms substrate and superstrate are often used when two languages interact. However,
8658-463: The great expansion in European maritime power and trade that led to the establishment of European colonies in other continents. The terms criollo and crioulo were originally qualifiers used throughout the Spanish and Portuguese colonies to distinguish the members of an ethnic group who were born and raised locally from those who immigrated as adults. They were most commonly applied to nationals of
8769-419: The heads of two men, feasts for the ancestors, all-night drum/song/dance performances, and the telling of folktales . Some months later, a "second funeral" is conducted to mark the end of the mourning period and to chase the ghost of the deceased from the village forever. These rites involve the largest public gatherings in Saramaka and also include all-night drum/song/dance performances. At their conclusion,
8880-526: The inheritance of material and spiritual possessions as well as political offices . Before death, however, men often pass on specialized ritual knowledge (and occasionally a shotgun) to a son. Each child, after spending its first several years with its mother, is raised by an individual man or woman (not a couple) designated by the bee , girls typically are raised by women, and boys by men. Although children spend most of their time with matrilineal kin, father-child relations are warm and strong. Gender identity
8991-411: The late 1980s, a civil war between Maroons and the military government of Suriname caused considerable hardship to the Saramaka and other Maroons. By mid-1989 approximately 3,000 Saramaka and 8,000 Ndyuka were living as temporary refugees in French Guiana. Access to the outside world was severely restricted for many Saramaka in their homeland. The end of the war in the mid-1990s initiated a period in which
9102-519: The late 20th century, the Saramaka produced most of their material culture, much of it embellished with decorative detail. Women sewed patchwork and embroidered clothing, and carved calabash bowls. Some men also produced baskets, and some women made pottery. Men built the houses and canoes. In addition, they carved a wide range of wooden objects for domestic use, such as stools, paddles, winnowing trays , cooking utensils, and combs. Today, an increasing number of items, including clothing, are imported from
9213-438: The main barrier point called Tapa Wata Sula, translated as Shut Off Rapids. This initial excursion led to subsequent trips and began the gradual influx of increasing outside influence throughout the following years. A local Saramaka man named Pompeia had left one of the uncontacted villages to visit the capital city of Paramaribo earlier that year. His knowledge of the villages beyond Tapa Wata Sula made him an invaluable guide on
9324-457: The meaning of these terms is reasonably well-defined only in second language acquisition or language replacement events, when the native speakers of a certain source language (the substrate) are somehow compelled to abandon it for another target language (the superstrate). The outcome of such an event is that erstwhile speakers of the substrate will use some version of the superstrate, at least in more formal contexts. The substrate may survive as
9435-417: The mid-18th century), but others Roman Catholic . Increasingly some are converted to Evangelicalism of one or another kind. The Saramaka world is populated by a wide range of supernatural beings, from localized forest spirits and gods that reside in the bodies of snakes, vultures , jaguars , and other animals, to ancestors, river gods, and warrior spirits. Within these categories, each supernatural being
9546-417: The national government is intervening more frequently in Saramaka affairs (and paying political officials nominal salaries), the sacred base of these officials’ power is gradually being eroded. These political offices are historically controlled and the property of clans ( lo ). Political activity is strongly dominated by men. Council meetings ( kuútu ) and divination sessions provide complementary arenas for
9657-530: The national government largely neglected the needs of Saramaka and other Maroons while granting large timber and mining concessions to foreign multinationals (Chinese, Indonesian, Malaysian, and others) in traditional Saramaka territory. They did not consult the Saramaka authorities. In addition, during this period there were numerous social changes, both on the coast of Suriname and in Saramaka territory. United States Peace Corps volunteers lived and worked in Saramaka villages, and Brazilian gold-miners arrived on
9768-429: The others. The lexicon of a pidgin is usually small and drawn from the vocabularies of its speakers, in varying proportions. Morphological details like word inflections , which usually take years to learn, are omitted; the syntax is kept very simple, usually based on strict word order. In this initial stage, all aspects of the speech – syntax, lexicon, and pronunciation – tend to be quite variable, especially with regard to
9879-437: The paucity of a historical record on creole genesis makes determining lexical correspondences a matter of chance. Dillard (1970) coined the term "cafeteria principle" to refer to the practice of arbitrarily attributing features of creoles to the influence of substrate African languages or assorted substandard dialects of European languages. For a representative debate on this issue, see the contributions to Mufwene (1993) ; for
9990-431: The precise mechanism of creole genesis, a more general debate has developed whether creole languages are characterized by different mechanisms than traditional languages (which is McWhorter's 2018 main point) or whether in that regard creole languages develop by the same mechanisms as any other languages (e.g. DeGraff 2001). The monogenetic theory of pidgins and creoles hypothesizes that all Atlantic creoles derived from
10101-527: The rainforest for their independence. They were so feared that late 18th century maps showed the defensive fortifications in the European colony intended to protect against their raids. In 1762, a full century before the general emancipation of slaves in Suriname, the Maroons won their freedom and signed a treaty with the Dutch Crown to acknowledge their territorial rights and trading privileges. The Saramaka have
10212-443: The relative neglect of creole languages in linguistics is that they do not fit the 19th-century neogrammarian "tree model" for the evolution of languages, and its postulated regularity of sound changes (these critics including the earliest advocates of the wave model , Johannes Schmidt and Hugo Schuchardt , the forerunners of modern sociolinguistics ). This controversy of the late 19th century profoundly shaped modern approaches to
10323-410: The resolution of social problems. Palavers may involve the men of a lineage, a village, or all Saramaka. They treat problems ranging from conflicts concerning marriage or fosterage to land disputes, political succession, or major crimes. These same problems, in addition to illness and other kinds of misfortune, are routinely interpreted through various kinds of divination as well. In all cases, consensus
10434-450: The simplification of input was supposed to account for creoles' simple grammar, commentators have raised a number of criticisms of this explanation: Another problem with the FT explanation is its potential circularity. Bloomfield (1933) points out that FT is often based on the imitation of the incorrect speech of the non-natives, that is the pidgin. Therefore, one may be mistaken in assuming that
10545-416: The social context of the creole's construction. However, there are often clear phonetic and semantic shifts. On the other hand, the grammar that has evolved often has new or unique features that differ substantially from those of the parent languages. A creole is believed to arise when a pidgin , developed by adults for use as a second language, becomes the native and primary language of their children –
10656-491: The speaker's background. If a pidgin manages to be learned by the children of a community as a native language, it may become fixed and acquire a more complex grammar, with fixed phonology, syntax, morphology, and syntactic embedding. Pidgins can become full languages in only a single generation . "Creolization" is this second stage where the pidgin language develops into a fully developed native language. The vocabulary, too, will develop to contain more and more items according to
10767-698: The speakers of a fully formed creole may eventually feel compelled to conform their speech to one of the parent languages. This decreolization process typically brings about a post-creole speech continuum characterized by large-scale variation and hypercorrection in the language. It is generally acknowledged that creoles have a simpler grammar and more internal variability than older, more established languages. However, these notions are occasionally challenged. (See also language complexity .) Phylogenetic or typological comparisons of creole languages have led to divergent conclusions. Similarities are usually higher among creoles derived from related languages, such as
10878-658: The specific past act that caused it. Through the performance of rites , the ancestors speak, the gods dance, and the world is again made right. Individual specialists who supervise rites oversee the major village- and clan-owned shrines that serve large numbers of clients, as well as the various categories of possession gods, and various kinds of minor divination. These specialists generally pass on their knowledge to selected individuals before death. A large proportion of Saramaka have some kind of specialized ritual expertise, which they occasionally exercise. They are paid in cloth, rum , or, increasingly, cash. Saramaka ceremonial life
10989-512: The substratum cannot be identified, or when the presence or the survival of substratal evidence is inferred from mere typological analogies. On the other hand, the distinction may be meaningful when the contributions of each parent language to the resulting creole can be shown to be very unequal, in a scientifically meaningful way. In the literature on Atlantic Creoles , "superstrate" usually means European and "substrate" non-European or African. Since creole languages rarely attain official status,
11100-417: The term "maroon" ( cimarron ) was used throughout the Americas to designate slaves who had escaped from slavery and set up independent communities beyond colonists' control. The 90,000 Saramaka in Suriname (some of whom live in neighboring French Guiana ) are one minority within this multi-ethnic nation. The Saramaka, together with the other Maroons in Suriname and French Guiana: the Ndyuka (90,000), and
11211-511: The terms "substrate" and "superstrate" are applicable to the genesis or the description of creole languages. The language replacement model may not be appropriate in creole formation contexts, where the emerging language is derived from multiple languages without any one of them being imposed as a replacement for any other. The substratum–superstratum distinction becomes awkward when multiple superstrata must be assumed (such as in Papiamento ), when
11322-400: The very nature of a creole language, the phylogenetic classification of a particular creole usually is a matter of dispute; especially when the pidgin precursor and its parent tongues (which may have been other creoles or pidgins) have disappeared before they could be documented. Phylogenetic classification traditionally relies on inheritance of the lexicon, especially of "core" terms, and of
11433-518: The village's functions and face other restrictions during their menstrual cycle. The Saramaka expression "to be in menstrual seclusion" is the same as "to be in mourning." The Saramaka people, like the other Maroon groups, are politically and formally run by men. The 2007 ruling of the Inter-American Court for Human Rights helps define the spheres of influence in which the national government and Saramaka authorities hold sway. Saramaka society
11544-529: The woman's kinsmen or made to pay them a fine. Aside from adultery disputes, which sometimes mobilize a full canoe-load of men seeking revenge in a public fistfight, intra-Saramaka conflict rarely surpasses the level of personal relations. The civil war that began in 1986, pitting Maroons against the national army of Suriname, brought major changes to the villages of the interior. Members of the " Jungle Commando " rebel army, almost all Ndyuka and Saramaka, learned to use automatic weapons . They became accustomed to
11655-438: The women gathering wild forest products, such as palm nuts. They imported a few key items, such as salt . Rice is the most cultivated crop, in dry (hillside) technique. Other crops include cassava , taro , okra , maize , plantains , bananas , sugarcane , and peanuts . Domesticated trees, such as coconut , orange , breadfruit , papaya , and calabash are mainly cultivated in the villages. There are no markets. Until
11766-400: The world, and the quickest way to do this was to develop a pidgin; in turn, full creole languages developed from these pidgins. In addition to creoles that have European languages as their base, there are, for example, creoles based on Arabic , Chinese , and Malay . The lexicon of a creole language is largely supplied by the parent languages, particularly that of the most dominant group in
11877-401: The world. At the same time, linguists have begun to come to the realization that creole languages are in no way inferior to other languages. They now use the term "creole" or "creole language" for any language suspected to have undergone creolization , terms that now imply no geographic restrictions nor ethnic prejudices. There is controversy about the extent to which creolization influenced
11988-399: Was a landmark decision for indigenous peoples in the world. They have received compensation for damages and control this fund for their own development goals. The word "Maroon" comes from the Spanish cimarrón , which was derived from an Arawakan root . Since 1990 especially, some of the Saramaka have migrated to French Guiana due to extended civil war in Suriname. By the early 16th century,
12099-484: Was born recently as a pidgin, and states "At this writing, in twenty years I have encountered not a single counterexample" (McWhorter 2018). Nevertheless, the existence of a creole prototype has been disputed by others: Building up on this discussion, McWhorter proposed that "the world's simplest grammars are Creole grammars", claiming that every noncreole language's grammar is at least as complex as any creole language's grammar. Gil has replied that Riau Indonesian has
12210-459: Was learned by slaves in slave depots, who later on took it to the West Indies and formed one component of the emerging English creoles. The French creoles are the foremost candidates to being the outcome of "normal" linguistic change and their creoleness to be sociohistoric in nature and relative to their colonial origin. Within this theoretical framework, a French creole is a language phylogenetically based on French , more specifically on
12321-479: Was removed for its isolation. In 1982, oil was discovered in Sarammacca which boosted its economy. On 13 December 2014, Staatsolie opened an oil refinery . The district has traditionally been the site of dozens of small, family owned farming communities, and it has only been recently that large agricultural projects have begun to emerge, primarily geared to the production of bananas , rice , and peanuts. Boskamp
#664335