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] Code-switching with Sranan Tongo and Dutch was common among the younger generation in 1973,[5] and about 70% of the tribe have moved to the urban areas.[6] UNESCO considers the language endangered.[7]
In the 1970s, Jan English-Lueck collected a vocabulary of 500 words. Unlike the Ndyuka languages, the letter r is spoken in a similar way to Sranan Tongo and Dutch, although speakers without r have been discovered later. About three quarters of the words were cognate to Sranan Tongo, very few (circa 3%) were cognate to Matawai, and about 17% were not found in the other creoles and mainly originated from Dutch.[8] The differences can be explained by education, because according to a 2011 study the population of Witagron had a good command of both Dutch and Sranan Tongo.[9]
References
- ^ Kwinti at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ^ Hoogbergen 1992, p. 123.
- ^ Borges 2014, p. 195.
- ^ Borges 2014, p. 188.
- ^ Elst 1973, p. 14.
- ^ Richard Price (2013). "The Maroon Population Explosion: Suriname and Guyane". New West Indian Guide. New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids Volume 87: Issue 3-4. 87 (3–4): 323–327. doi:10.1163/22134360-12340110. S2CID 140546216. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
- ^ "Kwinti". The University of the West-Indies, Jamaica. Archived from the original on 29 October 2021. Retrieved 29 July 2020.
- ^ Borges 2014, pp. 188–189.
- ^ Borges 2014, p. 191.
Bibliography
- Borges, Roger (2014). The Life of Languagedynamics of language contact in Suriname (PDF) (PhD. dissertation). Utrecht: Radboud University Nijmegen.
- Elst, Dirk van der (1973). "The Coppename Kwinti: Notes on an Afro-American tribe in Suriname". Nieuwe West-Indische Gids. University of Florida. 55.
- Hoogbergen, Wim (1 January 1992). "Origins of the Suriname Kwinti Maroons". New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids. 66 (1–2): 27–59. doi:10.1163/13822373-90002003.
- Green, E.C. (1974). The Matawai Maroons: An Acculturating Afro American Society (PhD. dissertation). Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America.
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