Saramaccan,
Is an inland language not commonly used outside the jungle areas that Saramaccaners live in. Not a nationally widely spoken language
5% of the population of Surinam
Most of whom life in a small area ......... in the jungles.
So what? It's still a language unique to Surinam.
Aukan,<>>> Aucaners same situation as Saramacaners.
3,5% of the population of Surinam.
Most of whom life in a small area ......... in the jungles.
Ditto.
Guyanese,
Definately not spoken in most of Surinam and as the name suggest it is
not a Surinamese language.
11% of the population of Surinam. You're right that most of its speakers are in Guyana, but 50000 of them are in Surinam which is 11% of the population of the nation.
50000? That is a large number which I very very much doubt!
http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=gyn indicates that out of 700.000 speakers total, 50.000 are in Surinam. The Ethnologue's data on Surinam comes from their field office there (http://www.sil.org/americas/suriname/Index.htm), and real data, not some estimate made by a linguist in Texas.
Javanese,
Only spoken by people of Indonesian background and as the name suggest it is not a Surinamese language.
It has a longer history in Surinam than Arabic (not "Moroccan") does in the Netherlands. In fact, what is Sranan Tongo's history in Surinam? How long has it been spoken there? It was brought by "immigrants" just as much as Javanese was. And also, the Javanese spoken in Surinam is a distinct variety of Javanese, unique to Surinam, so it IS very much a Surinamese language.
The Javanese were one of the last groups to be brought to Surinam. The first group starting from the 17th century were African slaves. It was here that Sranan comes from. The Javanese didn't appear untill the end of the 19th century as contract labourers after the abollishment of slavery.
It is spoken by 14% of the population, hardly a negligible figure.
Yes and they also speak Sranan.
But Sranan is not their native language. The degree of fluency in Sranan is not constant, some Javanese speakers are very good in Sranan while others are not.
Chinese,
Only spoken by people of Chinese background and as the name suggest it is not a Surinamese language.
Chinese has nearly as long a history in Surinam as does Sranan Tongo. In addition to that, it's spoken by 3% of the population.
No it doesn't same story as Javanese. They didn't appear untill the end of the 19th century as contract labourers. While the slaves arrived in etc ........ you'll figure it.
Yes, but it's not at all comparable to the history of Arabic in the Netherlands. Obviously slaves arrived in Surinam before Javanese, by a couple of hundred years. But slaves did not speak Sranang at first, creolisation is a process which takes at least a generation. Also, Saramaccan and Aukan are of slave origin as well, yet you write them off as just being spoken in jungles.
Hindustani
A form of Hindustani unique to Surinam, so it's a very much "Surinamese" language, and it's spoken by a whopping 35% of the population.
Forgotten this in my initial assesment. It is not Hindustani. It is called Sarnami Hindustani. And this 35% of the population also speaks Sranan.
So Sarnami Hindustani is not Hindustani? "Sarnami" is a qualifier, "Sarnami Hindustani" is a distinct type of the more general term "Hindustani". Hindustani applies to Hindustani as spoken in India, Fiji, Trinidad, Surinam, and anywhere else. The thing is, language isolates. This means that you are less likely to come into contact with people who don't speak a language you speak, unless you seek them out. There are actually monolingual speakers of Sarnami Hindustani, and as I said with Javanese, there are as with any bilingual situation differing degrees of fluency -- some Hindustani speakers will be more fluent in Sranan than others, so you can't use a blanket statement to say "Oh they all speak Sranang".
and Native American languages. There are about 10.000 of those, they are not even acknowledged in the Surinamese flag with its five points which stand for the five most important ethniticities.
3385 speakers total. In addition, the speakers of these languages have a much much much longer history in Surinam than any of the other people, they are more "Surinamese" than Indians, Chinese, Javanese, Blacks, Europeans, or mixed-race.
3385? did you count them?
No, this is approximate (margin of error is small though, about 50~75). This is not a count of native americans in surinam, it is of people speaking Native American languages, which is a different number as many Native Americans are monolingual in Sranan, Saramaccan, or Aukan nowadays.
"Five most important ethnicities" is a judgement passed by the ruling elites. Do you think the Native Americans would agree that they're not important??
I don't know. Never met them in my four years there as they all live in densely forested remote areas. So that figure could be plus or minus a lot. In my time in Surinam I remember 10.000 in my textbooks.
These are just as much "Surinamese" as Sranan. No they are not. Sranan is what binds most of the population together with Dutch .... so what is next you are going to call Moroccan a Dutch language because people in the Netherlands speak Moroccan? Or Dutch a Thai language because there are Dutch people in Thailand? All of these languages are not Surinamese. They happen to be spoken in the country of Surinam yes. There is but one Surinamese and that is Sranan Tongo.
This is a very glorified view of a language spoken by only 29% of the population. Hindustani is spoken by more people in Surinam, actually 35%, and Dutch is spoken by 46% of the population.
Much more than 29% of the population speaks Sranan. Everybody in Paramaribo (which makes for approx half the population) did (at least the ones I met) plus most Surinamese in the Netherlands do (considering more than 50% of Surinamese do not life in Surinam this is a big group).
At least the ones you met. I live in a county where a huge percentage of the population speaks Spanish, and many of them are monolinguals. Yet, by the nature of linguistic communities, I do not encounter them in daily life so much. Thus, you, being only capable in Dutch, Sranan, and English (as far as languages of Surinam -- I don't know what other languages you might know), are among an extended network of people who are very capable in Sranan. People who are not very capable in Sranan are likely to form their own sociolinguistic communities that are isolated in many ways from the community of Sranan speakers.
And don't tell me I can't know because I haven't been to Surinam. This is just basic sociolinguistics, and it will be true in any situation where there are two language communities in close proximity.
So while "Sranan" does indeed mean "Surinamese", the name "Sranan" is also used in English to distinguish it from other languages of Surinam.
Well I am not a native Oxford-English or American-English or whatever English speaker but I still have my doubts about that.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sranang_Tongo, http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=srn, both of which prefer the name "Sranang Tongo" or "Sranan".
Well wikipedia is silly. In nl.wikipedia we call it Surinaams. Great argument ain't it?
I don't dispute that the Dutch normal name is Surinaams. But the English name is Sranang Tongo.
ethnologue ...... well the more I look at it the more I am wondering about the way they get their data.
Depending on the area of the world, they might get it from a trusted external source, or from a field office. In the case of Surinam, they get it from their Surinam field office, a group of people actually in surinam working on the languages of Surinam, who are definitely more qualified than you to make such judgements.
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See this as well: A Google search for "Sranang Tongo" turns up 744 pages in English (http://www.google.com/search?q=%22sranang+tongo%22&hl=en&lr=lang_en&...), while a search for "Surinamese language" turns up only 74. http://www.google.com/search?q=%22surinamese+language%22&hl=en&lr=la...
Even the CIA factbook has "Sranang Tongo".
<>Well, you're one person, and "rusty I admit though" is not comforting at all. And what about Papiamento?? How comforting is it for me to see you requesting many languages you never spoke or heard of? If we go in that road of argumenting. My 4 years in Surinam are a lot more comforting. And no I do not speak Papiamentu.
What the hell? How many languages have I requested in my ENTIRE LIFE??? Sicilian, Friulian, and Ligurian. THAT IS ALL. 3 languages. A whopping 3 languages. With Sicilian and Friulian, I had native speakers who expressed interest BEFORE the Wikipedias were created. Both were created, are now active, and scn.wiki has over 1000 articles.
That is not the impression I got when I look at your activity on the meta page and when I looked at the developers reaction when you came in to ask for new wiki's to be created.
Activity on Requests for new languages is NOT the same as submitting a lot of requests. Most of my activity is response to others' requests. Scepticism on the part of Tim Starling is due to a previous extended flamewar about Friulian, a couple of years ago, which was primarily because even though I was working with a native speaker, they didn't post to the list.
Who decides if wikipedias get created? You? It sometimes seems like it.
You know very well it isn't me. Precisely but your reactions on this list and elsewhere always show that you feel you should be the one who is deciding. 6 people support NDS-NL among which 2 native speakers. And you oppose and because you oppose you feel you can obstruct the whole progress because your "demands" weren't met. Frankly I am getting a littlebit tired of your "every language has to go by me" attitude. You are doing lots of good work in the languagefield. But destroying it by your behaviour.
No, I don't feel that I should be the one deciding. But the process is one of community discussion, and any community member has the right to express their opinion. "every language has to go by me" attitude? What the hell??!? A language obviously doesn't need my blessing to get a Wikipedia created, and I don't think it should be the case, but I as everybody else in the community have a right to express my opinion on each language. So stuff it.
Yes and you are expressing your opinion so vehemently and so dominantly that everybody seems to stay away from the meta languagepage and any other language related discussion because they do not want to have to deal with you it seems. On the stuffing it matter ....... I am actually eating at the moment ..... so yes I am stuffing it thanks ;)
"Everybody seems to stay away"... is that why Scott Gall, Naziismisntcool, Haaflimbo, and so many other people post so often to the meta requests page? Only one of the requests on there (Ligurian) was filed by me, the rest were filed by others... that doesn't amount to little activity, there are like 30 or 40 requests.
It's the decision of the developers, ultimately, although if a board member or somebody else high up in the organisational structure decides it should be created, the developer will usually create it for them.
So maybe I should go to a board member instead of discussing with you here! Good alternative indeed. Thanks for your understanding.
Asking a board member is not an "alternative" for community discussion. Community discussion, and resolution of outstanding issues, is nessecary before the creation of any new Wikipedia.
On the talkpage, Angela implied in one of her comments that as long as there is an opposing vote, there needs to be a community discussion to observe objections and explore solutions before it can be created.
I have a right to express my opinion on any language. So please, let me express my opinion.
So that means that if one person is against something and a lot of people are in favour. That one person can stop the other persons from getting something? I am sure Angela never said that. It just doesn't sound like here.
No, it does not mean they can stop the group. But it means that instead of the Wikipedia being created right away, there needs to be an extended discussion of the issues that have been raised.
It's very arrogant of you to be so sure Angela never said that when you haven't read everything she's ever said.
Quote: "Requests that have significant objections to them, meaning they can not yet be created. No proposed code should be counted as an objection."
This means that any request with a significant objection cannot be created. A significant objection can be defined in different ways, my guess is one that gives a logical reason instead of like the one Scott Gall gave that says that Balinese people don't deserve a Wikipedia because of their treatment of Schapelle Corby.
Mark