136-669: Gran Rio ( lit. ' Big River ' ) is a river of Suriname . The Gran Rio joins with the Pikin Rio to form the Upper Suriname River . The river runs from the northern hills of the Eilerts de Haan Mountains . It has a stony bottom, forms many tiny islands and has many rapids. The river was first explored in 1908 by Eilerts de Haan to find the source of the Suriname River. This article related to
272-578: A common ancestor with languages such as English, German, and the Scandinavian languages . All Germanic languages are subject to the Grimm's law and Verner's law sound shifts, which originated in the Proto-Germanic language and define the basic features differentiating them from other Indo-European languages. This is assumed to have taken place in approximately the mid-first millennium BCE in
408-467: A schwa . The Middle Dutch dialect areas were affected by political boundaries. The sphere of political influence of a certain ruler often also created a sphere of linguistic influence, with the language within the area becoming more homogenous. Following the contemporary political divisions they are in order of importance: A process of standardisation started in the Middle Ages , especially under
544-601: A synod taking place in Corbridge , England , where the decisions are being written down " tam Latine quam theodisce " meaning "in Latin as well as common vernacular". According to a hypothesis by De Grauwe, In northern West Francia (i.e. modern-day Belgium) the term would take on a new meaning during the Early Middle Ages , when, within the context of a highly dichromatic linguistic landscape, it came to be
680-511: A British fleet sailing to meet Lord Willoughby in Barbados , which at the time was the seat of English colonial government in the region, again spelled the name of the colony Surinam . A 1663 royal charter said the region around the river was "called Serrinam also Surrinam". As a result of the Surrinam spelling, 19th-century British sources offered the folk etymology Surryham , saying it
816-576: A comparison between the West Germanic languages, see the sections Phonology, Grammar, and Vocabulary. Dutch dialects are primarily the dialects that are both related with the Dutch language and are spoken in the same language area as the Dutch standard language . Although heavily under the influence of the standard language, some of them remain diverse and are found in the Netherlands and in
952-467: A consequence evolve (along with Alemannic , Bavarian and Lombardic ) into Old High German. At more or less the same time the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law, moving over Western Europe from west to east, led to the development of Old English (or Anglo-Saxon), Old Frisian and Old Saxon . Hardly influenced by either development, Old Dutch probably remained relatively close to the original language of
1088-661: A five-year term. In the elections held on Tuesday 25 May 2010, the Megacombinatie won 23 of the National Assembly seats, followed by Nationale Front with 20 seats. A much smaller number, important for coalition-building, went to the "A-combinatie" and to the Volksalliantie. The parties held negotiations to form coalitions. Elections were held on 25 May 2015, and the National Assembly again elected Dési Bouterse as president. The president of Suriname
1224-582: A minority language in Germany and northern France's French Flanders . Though Belgium as a whole is multilingual, three of the four language areas into which the country is divided ( Flanders , francophone Wallonia , and the German-speaking Community ) are largely monolingual, with Brussels being bilingual. The Netherlands and Belgium produce the vast majority of music , films , books and other media written or spoken in Dutch. Dutch
1360-670: A minority) and the province of Walloon Brabant . Brabantian expands into small parts in the west of Limburg while its strong influence on the East Flemish of East Flanders and eastern Zeelandic Flanders weakens towards the west. In a small area in the northwest of North Brabant ( Willemstad ), Hollandic is spoken. Conventionally, the Kleverlandish dialects are distinguished from Brabantian, but there are no objective criteria apart from geography to do so. Over 5 million people live in an area with some form of Brabantian being
1496-420: A number of closely related, mutually intelligible dialects spoken in the former Old Dutch area. Where Old Dutch fragments are very hard to read for untrained Modern Dutch speakers, the various literary works of Middle Dutch are somewhat more accessible. The most notable difference between Old and Middle Dutch is in a feature of speech known as vowel reduction , whereby vowels in unstressed syllables are leveled to
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#17327766663551632-579: A political border, because the traditional dialects are strongly influenced by the national standard varieties. While a somewhat heterogeneous group of Low Franconian dialects, Limburgish has received official status as a regional language in the Netherlands and Germany, but not in Belgium. Due to this official recognition, it receives protection by chapter 2 of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages . Afrikaans , although to
1768-413: A result, Nederduits no longer serves as a synonym for the Dutch language. In the 19th century, the term " Diets " was revived by Dutch linguists and historians as well, as a poetic name for Middle Dutch and its literature . Old Dutch can be discerned more or less around the same time as Old English (Anglo-Saxon), Old High German , Old Frisian , and Old Saxon . These names are derived from
1904-509: A result, when West Flemings try to talk Standard Dutch, they are often unable to pronounce the g-sound, and pronounce it similar to the h-sound. This leaves, for example, no difference between " held " (hero) and " geld " (money). Or in some cases, they are aware of the problem, and hyper-correct the "h" into a voiced velar fricative or g-sound, again leaving no difference. The West Flemish variety historically spoken in adjacent parts in France
2040-569: A river in Suriname is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Suriname Suriname ( / ˈ s ʊər ɪ n æ m , - n ɑː m / SOOR -in- A(H)M , Dutch: [syːriˈnaːmə] , Sranan Tongo: [sraˈnãŋ] ), officially the Republic of Suriname ( Dutch : Republiek Suriname [reːpyˈblik syːriˈnaːmə] ), is a country in northern South America , sometimes considered part of
2176-657: A second meeting toward this goal on 3–4 March 2011, in Dover, Barbados. Their representatives reviewed issues of agriculture, trade, investment, as well as international transport. In the late 2000s, Suriname intensified development cooperation with other developing countries. China's South-South cooperation with Suriname has included a number of large-scale infrastructure projects, including port rehabilitation and road construction. Brazil signed agreements to cooperate with Suriname in education, health, agriculture, and energy production. The Armed Forces of Suriname have three branches:
2312-473: A second or third language in the polyglot Caribbean island countries of Aruba , Curaçao and Sint Maarten . All these countries have recognised Dutch as one of their official languages, and are involved in one way or another in the Dutch Language Union . The Dutch Caribbean municipalities ( St. Eustatius , Saba and Bonaire ) have Dutch as one of the official languages. In Asia, Dutch
2448-522: A significant degree mutually intelligible with Dutch, is usually not considered a dialect but instead a separate standardised language . It is spoken in South Africa and Namibia. As a daughter language of 17th-century Dutch dialects, Afrikaans evolved in parallel with modern Dutch, but was influenced by various other languages in South Africa. West Frisian ( Westerlauwers Fries ), along with Saterland Frisian and North Frisian , evolved from
2584-479: A somewhat different development since the late Middle Ages. Two dialect groups have been given the official status of regional language (or streektaal ) in the Netherlands. Like several other dialect groups, both are part of a dialect continuum that continues across the national border. The Dutch Low Saxon dialect area comprises the provinces of Groningen , Drenthe and Overijssel , as well as parts of
2720-424: A source language, mainly for law and history students. In Indonesia this involves about 35,000 students. Unlike other European nations, the Dutch chose not to follow a policy of language expansion amongst the indigenous peoples of their colonies. In the last quarter of the 19th century, however, a local elite gained proficiency in Dutch so as to meet the needs of expanding bureaucracy and business. Nevertheless,
2856-552: A unique prestige dialect and has a large dialectal continuum consisting of 28 main dialects, which can themselves be further divided into at least 600 distinguishable varieties. In the Netherlands, the Hollandic dialect dominates in national broadcast media while in Flanders Brabantian dialect dominates in that capacity, making them in turn unofficial prestige dialects in their respective countries. Outside
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#17327766663552992-537: Is kantor , handdoek "towel" in Indonesian is handuk , or bushalte "bus stop" in Indonesian is halte bus . In addition, many Indonesian words are calques of Dutch; for example, rumah sakit "hospital" is calqued on the Dutch ziekenhuis (literally "sickhouse"), kebun binatang "zoo" on dierentuin (literally "animal garden"), undang-undang dasar "constitution" from grondwet (literally "ground law"). These account for some of
3128-572: Is Paramaribo , which is home to roughly half the population. Suriname was inhabited as early as the fourth millennium BC by various indigenous peoples , including the Arawaks , Caribs , and Wayana . Europeans arrived and contested the area in the 16th century, with the Dutch controlling much of the country's current territory by the late 17th century. Under Dutch rule , Suriname was a lucrative plantation colony focused mostly on sugar ; its economy
3264-583: Is "pale-skinned negroes"), and in Dutch as Marrons . The Maroons gradually developed several independent tribes through a process of ethnogenesis , as they were made up of slaves from different African ethnicities. These tribes include the Saramaka , Paramaka , Ndyuka or Aukan, Kwinti , Aluku or Boni, and Matawai . The Maroons often raided plantations to recruit new members from the slaves and capture women, as well as to acquire weapons, food, and supplies. They sometimes killed planters and their families in
3400-466: Is a calque of the aforementioned Roman province Germania Inferior and an attempt by early Dutch grammarians to give their language more prestige by linking it to Roman times. Likewise, Hoogduits ("High German") and Overlands ("Upper-landish") came into use as a Dutch exonym for the various German dialects used in neighboring German states. Use of Nederduytsch was popular in the 16th century but ultimately lost out over Nederlands during
3536-473: Is a monocentric language , at least what concerns its written form, with all speakers using the same standard form (authorised by the Dutch Language Union ) based on a Dutch orthography defined in the so-called " Green Booklet " authoritative dictionary and employing the Latin alphabet when writing; however, pronunciation varies between dialects. Indeed, in stark contrast to its written uniformity, Dutch lacks
3672-537: Is also an official language of several international organisations, such as the European Union , Union of South American Nations and the Caribbean Community . At an academic level, Dutch is taught in about 175 universities in 40 countries. About 15,000 students worldwide study Dutch at university. In Europe, Dutch is the majority language in the Netherlands (96%) and Belgium (59%) as well as
3808-410: Is elected for a five-year term by a two-thirds majority of the National Assembly. If at least two-thirds of the National Assembly cannot agree to vote for one presidential candidate, a People's Assembly is formed from all National Assembly delegates and regional and municipal representatives who were elected by popular vote in the most recent national election. The president may be elected by a majority of
3944-587: Is found in the Salic law . In this Frankish document written around 510 the oldest Dutch sentence has been identified: Maltho thi afrio lito ("I say to you, I free you, serf") used to free a serf. Another old fragment of Dutch is Visc flot aftar themo uuatare ("A fish was swimming in the water"). The oldest conserved larger Dutch text is the Utrecht baptismal vow (776–800) starting with Forsachistu diobolae ... ec forsacho diabolae (litt.: "Forsake you
4080-617: Is headed by the High Court of Justice of Suriname (Supreme Court). This court supervises the magistrate courts. Members are appointed for life by the president in consultation with the National Assembly, the State Advisory Council, and the National Order of Private Attorneys. Due to Suriname's Dutch colonial history, Suriname had a long-standing special relationship with the Netherlands. In 1999, Dési Bouterse
4216-471: Is mostly Germanic; it incorporates slightly more Romance loans than German, but far fewer than English. In Belgium, the Netherlands and Suriname, the native official name for Dutch is Nederlands (historically Nederlandsch before the Dutch orthographic reforms ). Sometimes Vlaams (" Flemish ") is used as well to describe Standard Dutch in Flanders , whereas Hollands (" Hollandic ")
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4352-487: Is occasionally used as a colloquial term for the standard language in the central and northwestern parts of the Netherlands. English uses the adjective Dutch as a noun for the language of the Netherlands and Flanders. The word is derived from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz . The stem of this word, *þeudō , meant "people" in Proto-Germanic, and *-iskaz was an adjective-forming suffix, of which -ish
4488-569: Is so distinct that it might be considered as a separate language variant, although the strong significance of language in Belgian politics would prevent the government from classifying them as such. An oddity of the dialect is that, the voiced velar fricative (written as "g" in Dutch) shifts to a voiced glottal fricative (written as "h" in Dutch), while the letter "h" becomes mute (like in French). As
4624-585: Is sometimes called French Flemish and is listed as a French minority language . However, only a very small and aging minority of the French-Flemish population still speaks and understands West Flemish. Hollandic is spoken in Holland and Utrecht , though the original forms of this dialect (which were heavily influenced by a West Frisian substratum and, from the 16th century on, by Brabantian dialects ) are now relatively rare. The urban dialects of
4760-637: Is spoken in Limburg (Belgium) as well as in the remaining part of Limburg (Netherlands) and extends across the German border. West Flemish ( Westvlaams ) is spoken in West Flanders , the western part of Zeelandic Flanders and also in French Flanders , where it virtually became extinct to make way for French. The West Flemish group of dialects, spoken in West Flanders and Zeeland ,
4896-595: Is taught in various educational centres in Indonesia, the most important of which is the Erasmus Language Centre (ETC) in Jakarta . Each year, some 1,500 to 2,000 students take Dutch courses there. In total, several thousand Indonesians study Dutch as a foreign language. Owing to centuries of Dutch rule in Indonesia, many old documents are written in Dutch. Many universities therefore include Dutch as
5032-662: Is the Modern English form. Theodiscus was its Latinised form and used as an adjective referring to the Germanic vernaculars of the Early Middle Ages . In this sense, it meant "the language of the common people". The term was used as opposed to Latin , the non -native language of writing and the Catholic Church . It was first recorded in 786, when the Bishop of Ostia writes to Pope Adrian I about
5168-404: Is the case with the ( standardised ) West Frisian language . It is spoken alongside Dutch in the province of Friesland . Dutch dialects and regional languages are not spoken as often as they used to be, especially in the Netherlands. Recent research by Geert Driessen shows that the use of dialects and regional languages among both Dutch adults and youth is in heavy decline. In 1995, 27 percent of
5304-474: Is the sole official language, and over 60 percent of the population speaks it as a mother tongue . Dutch is the obligatory medium of instruction in schools in Suriname, even for non-native speakers. A further twenty-four percent of the population speaks Dutch as a second language . Suriname gained its independence from the Netherlands in 1975 and has been an associate member of the Dutch Language Union since 2004. The lingua franca of Suriname, however,
5440-558: The 1977 elections , in which Arron won a further term, and the discontent was such that a large portion of the population fled to the Netherlands, joining the already significant Surinamese community there. On 25 February 1980, a military coup overthrew Arron's government. It was initiated by a group of 16 sergeants, led by Dési Bouterse . Opponents of the military regime attempted counter-coups in April 1980, August 1980, 15 March 1981, and again on 12 March 1982. The first counter attempt
5576-531: The 2006 New Zealand census , 26,982 people, or 0.70 percent of the total population, reported to speak Dutch to sufficient fluency that they could hold an everyday conversation. In contrast to the colonies in the East Indies , from the second half of the 19th century onwards, the Netherlands envisaged the expansion of Dutch in its colonies in the West Indies . Until 1863, when slavery was abolished in
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5712-578: The Bergakker inscription , found near the Dutch city of Tiel , which may represent a primary record of 5th-century Frankish. Although some place names recorded in Roman texts such as vadam (modern Dutch: wad , English: "mudflat"), could arguably be considered as the oldest single "Dutch" words, the Bergakker inscription yields the oldest evidence of Dutch morphology. However, interpretations of
5848-455: The Brussels and Flemish regions of Belgium . The areas in which they are spoken often correspond with former medieval counties and duchies. The Netherlands (but not Belgium) distinguishes between a dialect and a streektaal (" regional language "). Those words are actually more political than linguistic because a regional language unites a large group of very different varieties. Such is
5984-594: The Caribbean and the West Indies . Suriname is a developing country with a medium level of human development ; its economy is heavily dependent on its abundant natural resources, namely bauxite , gold , petroleum , and agricultural products . Suriname is a member of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the United Nations , and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation . Situated slightly north of
6120-554: The High German consonant shift , does not use Germanic umlaut as a grammatical marker, has largely abandoned the use of the subjunctive , and has levelled much of its morphology , including most of its case system . Features shared with German, however, include the survival of two to three grammatical genders – albeit with few grammatical consequences – as well as the use of modal particles , final-obstruent devoicing , and (similar) word order . Dutch vocabulary
6256-473: The Indo-European language family , spoken by about 25 million people as a first language and 5 million as a second language and is the third most spoken Germanic language. In Europe, Dutch is the native language of most of the population of the Netherlands and Flanders (which includes 60% of the population of Belgium ). Dutch was one of the official languages of South Africa until 1925, when it
6392-493: The Low Countries , its meaning being largely implicitly provided by the regional orientation of medieval Dutch society: apart from the higher echelons of the clergy and nobility, mobility was largely static and hence while "Dutch" could by extension also be used in its earlier sense, referring to what today would be called Germanic dialects as opposed to Romance dialects , in many cases it was understood or meant to refer to
6528-591: The Low Franconian languages, paired with its sister language Limburgish or East Low Franconian. Its closest relative is the mutually intelligible daughter language Afrikaans. Other West Germanic languages related to Dutch are German , English and the un-standardised languages Low German and Yiddish . Dutch stands out in combining some Ingvaeonic characteristics (occurring consistently in English and Frisian and reduced in intensity from west to east over
6664-591: The Netherlands Antilles and the Netherlands. In this construction, the Netherlands retained control of its defense and foreign affairs. In 1974, the local government, led by the National Party of Suriname (NPS) (whose membership was largely Creole , meaning ethnically African or mixed African-European), started negotiations with the Dutch government leading towards full independence; in contrast to Indonesia 's earlier war for independence from
6800-578: The Netherlands government-in-exile , the United States sent 2,000 soldiers to Suriname to protect the bauxite mines to support the Allies' war effort. In 1942, the Dutch government-in-exile began to review the relations between the Netherlands and its colonies in terms of the post-war period. In 1954, Suriname became one of the constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands , along with
6936-531: The Randstad , which are Hollandic dialects, do not diverge from standard Dutch very much, but there is a clear difference between the city dialects of Rotterdam , The Hague , Amsterdam and Utrecht . In some rural Hollandic areas more authentic Hollandic dialects are still being used, especially north of Amsterdam. Another group of dialects based on Hollandic is that spoken in the cities and larger towns of Friesland , where it partially displaced West Frisian in
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#17327766663557072-588: The Second Anglo-Dutch War , the Dutch decided to keep the nascent plantation colony of Surinam they had gained from the English. In return the English kept New Amsterdam , the main city of the former colony of New Netherland in North America on the mid-Atlantic coast. The British renamed it New York , after the Duke of York who would later become King James II of England . In 1683,
7208-601: The Society of Suriname was founded by the city of Amsterdam , the Van Aerssen van Sommelsdijck family, and the Dutch West India Company . The society was chartered to manage and defend the colony. The planters of the colony relied heavily on African slaves to cultivate, harvest and process the commodity crops of coffee, cocoa, sugar cane and cotton plantations along the rivers. Planters' treatment of
7344-543: The Southern Netherlands (now Belgium and Luxembourg), developments were different. Under subsequent Spanish , Austrian and French rule , the standardisation of Dutch language came to a standstill. The state, law, and increasingly education used French, yet more than half the Belgian population were speaking a variety of Dutch. In the course of the 19th century, the Flemish Movement stood up for
7480-609: The Surinaamse Krijgsmacht (SKM):, Surinamese Armed Forces. After the 1980 overthrow of the government, the SKM was rebranded as the Nationaal Leger (NL), National Army. In 1965, the Dutch and Americans used Suriname's Coronie site for multiple Nike Apache sounding rocket launches. Dutch language Dutch ( endonym : Nederlands [ˈneːdərlɑnts] ) is a West Germanic language of
7616-497: The antonym of *walhisk (Romance-speakers, specifically Old French ). The word, now rendered as dietsc (Southwestern variant) or duutsc (Central and Northern Variant), could refer to the Dutch language itself, as well as a broader Germanic category depending on context. During the High Middle Ages " Dietsc / Duutsc " was increasingly used as an umbrella term for the specific Germanic dialects spoken in
7752-471: The continental West Germanic plane) with dominant Istvaeonic characteristics, some of which are also incorporated in German. Unlike German, Dutch (apart from Limburgish) has not been influenced at all by the south to north movement of the High German consonant shift and had some changes of its own. The cumulation of these changes resulted over time in separate, but related standard languages with various degrees of similarities and differences between them. For
7888-434: The differences in vocabulary between Indonesian and Malay. Some regional languages in Indonesia have some Dutch loanwords as well; for example, Sundanese word Katel or "frying pan" origin in Dutch is " ketel ". The Javanese word for "bike/ bicycle " " pit " can be traced back to its origin in Dutch " fiets ". The Malacca state of Malaysia was also colonized by the Dutch in its longest period that Malacca
8024-642: The pre-Roman Northern European Iron Age . The Germanic languages are traditionally divided into three groups: East (now extinct), West , and North Germanic. They remained mutually intelligible throughout the Migration Period . Dutch is part of the West Germanic group, which also includes English, Scots , Frisian , Low German (Old Saxon) and High German . It is characterised by a number of phonological and morphological innovations not found in North or East Germanic. The West Germanic varieties of
8160-459: The 14th to 15th century onward, its urban centers ( Deventer , Zwolle , Kampen , Zutphen and Doesburg ) have been increasingly influenced by the western written Dutch and became a linguistically mixed area. From the 17th century onward, it was gradually integrated into the Dutch language area. Dutch Low Saxon used to be at one end of the Low German dialect continuum . However, the national border has given way to dialect boundaries coinciding with
8296-476: The 16th century and is known as Stadsfries ("Urban Frisian"). Hollandic together with inter alia Kleverlandish and North Brabantian , but without Stadsfries, are the Central Dutch dialects . Brabantian is named after the historical Duchy of Brabant , which corresponded mainly to the provinces of North Brabant and southern Gelderland , the Belgian provinces of Antwerp and Flemish Brabant , as well as Brussels (where its native speakers have become
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#17327766663558432-502: The 7th century. It was replaced in France by Old French (a Romance language with a considerable Old Frankish influence). However, the Old Franconian language did not die out at large, as it continued to be spoken in the Low Countries, and subsequently evolved into what is now called Old Low Franconian or Old Dutch in the Low Countries. In fact, Old Frankish could be reconstructed from Old Dutch and Frankish loanwords in Old French. The term Old Dutch or Old Low Franconian refers to
8568-405: The Army, the Air Force, and the Navy. The president of the Republic is the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces ( Opperbevelhebber van de Strijdkrachten ). The president is assisted by the minister of defence. Beneath the president and minister of defence is the commander of the armed forces ( Bevelhebber van de Strijdkrachten ). The military branches and regional military commands report to
8704-450: The British, who then ruled the area). In addition, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, small numbers of laborers, mostly men, were recruited from China and the Middle East. Although Suriname's population remains relatively small, because of this complex colonization and exploitation, it is one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse countries in the world. During World War II , on 23 November 1941, under an agreement with
8840-417: The Dutch adult population spoke a dialect or regional language on a regular basis, but in 2011, that was no more than 11 percent. In 1995, 12 percent of children of primary school age spoke a dialect or regional language, but in 2011, that had declined to four percent. Of the officially recognised regional languages Limburgish is spoken the most (in 2011 among adults 54%, among children 31%) and Dutch Low Saxon
8976-409: The Dutch government remained reluctant to teach Dutch on a large scale for fear of destabilising the colony. Dutch, the language of power, was supposed to remain in the hands of the leading elite. After independence, Dutch was dropped as an official language and replaced by Indonesian , but this does not mean that Dutch has completely disappeared in Indonesia: Indonesian Dutch , a regional variety of
9112-415: The Dutch standard language is largely absent, and speakers of these Dutch dialects will use German or French in everyday speech. Dutch is not afforded legal status in France or Germany, either by the central or regional public authorities, and knowledge of the language is declining among younger generations. As a foreign language , Dutch is mainly taught in primary and secondary schools in areas adjacent to
9248-466: The Dutch standard language, it is not mutually intelligible with Dutch and considered a sister language of Dutch, like English and German. Approximate distribution of native Dutch speakers worldwide: Dutch is an official language of the Netherlands proper (not enshrined in the constitution but in administrative law ), Belgium, Suriname, the Dutch Caribbean municipalities (St. Eustatius, Saba and Bonaire), Aruba , Curaçao and Sint Maarten . Dutch
9384-408: The Dutch, was still spoken by about 500,000 half-blood in Indonesia in 1985. Yet the Indonesian language inherited many words from Dutch: words for everyday life as well as scientific and technological terms. One scholar argues that 20% of Indonesian words can be traced back to Dutch words, many of which are transliterated to reflect phonetic pronunciation e.g. kantoor "office" in Indonesian
9520-404: 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. Most people live along the northern coast, centered around Paramaribo, making Suriname one of the least densely populated countries on Earth . The name Suriname may derive from an indigenous people called Surinen , who inhabited
9656-488: The Franks. However, the language did experience developments of its own, such as very early final-obstruent devoicing . In fact, the find at Bergakker indicates that the language may already have experienced this shift during the Old Frankish period. Attestations of Old Dutch sentences are extremely rare. The language is mostly recorded on fragmentary relics, and words have been reconstructed from Middle Dutch and loan words from Old Dutch in other languages. The oldest recorded
9792-578: The Maroons sovereign status and trade rights in their inland territories, giving them autonomy. From 1861 to 1863, with the American Civil War underway, and enslaved people escaping to Northern territory controlled by the Union , United States President Abraham Lincoln and his administration looked abroad for places to relocate people who were freed from enslavement and who wanted to leave
9928-637: The NPS) as Prime Minister. In the years leading up to independence, nearly one-third of the population of Suriname emigrated to the Netherlands, amidst concern that the new country would fare worse under independence than it had as a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Surinamese politics did degenerate into ethnic polarisation and corruption soon after independence, with the NPS using Dutch aid money for partisan purposes. Its leaders were accused of fraud in
10064-576: The Netherlands and Flanders . In French-speaking Belgium , over 300,000 pupils are enrolled in Dutch courses, followed by over 23,000 in the German states of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia , and about 7,000 in the French region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais (of which 4,550 are in primary school). At an academic level, the largest number of faculties of neerlandistiek can be found in Germany (30 universities), followed by France (20 universities) and
10200-412: The Netherlands and Belgium, the dialect spoken in and around the German town of Kleve ( Kleverlandish ) is historically and genetically a Low Franconian variety. In North-Western France, the area around Calais was historically Dutch-speaking (West Flemish), of which an estimated 20,000 are daily speakers. The cities of Dunkirk , Gravelines and Bourbourg only became predominantly French-speaking by
10336-539: The Netherlands, although there are recognisable differences in pronunciation, comparable to the pronunciation differences between standard British and standard American English. In 1980 the Netherlands and Belgium concluded the Language Union Treaty . This treaty lays down the principle that the two countries must gear their language policy to each other, among other things, for a common system of spelling. Dutch belongs to its own West Germanic sub-group,
10472-424: The Netherlands, the path toward Suriname's independence had been an initiative of the then left-wing Dutch government . Independence was granted on 25 November 1975. A large part of Suriname's economy for the first decade following independence was fueled by foreign aid provided by the Dutch government. The first President of the country was Johan Ferrier , the former governor, with Henck Arron (the then leader of
10608-512: The Netherlands. Suriname's culture and society strongly reflect the legacy of Dutch colonial rule. It is the only sovereign nation outside Europe where Dutch is the official and prevailing language of government, business, media, and education; an estimated 60% of the population speaks Dutch as a native language. 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
10744-477: The People's Assembly called for the special election. As head of government, the president appoints a sixteen-minister cabinet. A vice president is normally elected for a five-year term at the same time as the president, by a simple majority in the National Assembly or People's Assembly. There is no constitutional provision for removal or replacement of the president, except in the case of resignation. The judiciary
10880-552: The Second Voyage to Guiana of passing a river called " Shurinama " as he travelled along the coast. In 1598, a fleet of three Dutch ships visiting the Wild Coast mention passing the river " Surinamo ". In 1617, a Dutch notary spelled the name of the river on which a Dutch trading post had existed three years earlier as " Surrenant ". British settlers, who in 1630 founded the first European colony at Marshall's Creek along
11016-549: The Suriname River, spelled the name " Surinam "; this would long remain the standard spelling in English. The Dutch navigator David Pietersz. de Vries wrote of travelling up the " Sername " river in 1634 until he encountered the English colony there; the terminal vowel remained in future Dutch spellings and pronunciations. The river was called Soronama in a 1640 Spanish manuscript entitled "General Description of All His Majesty's Dominions in America". In 1653, instructions given to
11152-532: The U.S. Department of Defense. Suriname has been a member of The Forum of Small States (FOSS) since the group's founding in 1992. European Union relations and cooperation with Suriname are carried out both on a bilateral and a regional basis. There are ongoing EU- Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and EU- CARIFORUM dialogues. Suriname is party to the Cotonou Agreement ,
11288-674: The United Kingdom (5 universities). Despite the Dutch presence in Indonesia for almost 350 years, as the Asian bulk of the Dutch East Indies , the Dutch language has no official status there and the small minority that can speak the language fluently are either educated members of the oldest generation, or employed in the legal profession such as historians, diplomats, lawyers, jurists and linguists/polyglots, as certain law codes are still only available in Dutch. Dutch
11424-527: The United States. It opened negotiations with the Dutch government regarding African American emigration to and colonization of the Dutch colony of Suriname . Nothing came of the idea, which was dropped after 1864. The Netherlands abolished slavery in Suriname in 1863, under a gradual process that required slaves to work on plantations for 10 transition years for minimal pay, which was considered as partial compensation for their masters. After that transition period expired in 1873, most freedmen largely abandoned
11560-621: The West Indies, slaves were forbidden to speak Dutch, with the effect that local creoles such as Papiamento and Sranan Tongo which were based not on Dutch but rather other European languages, became common in the Dutch West Indies. However, as most of the people in the Colony of Surinam (now Suriname ) worked on Dutch plantations, this reinforced the use of Dutch as a means for direct communication. In Suriname today, Dutch
11696-604: The area at the time of European contact. The suffix -ame, common in Surinamese river and place names (see also the Coppename River ), may come from aima or eima , meaning river or creek mouth, in Lokono , an Arawak language spoken in the country. The earliest European sources give variants of "Suriname" as the name of the river on which colonies were eventually founded. Lawrence Kemys wrote in his Relation of
11832-724: The area known as the Low Countries goes back further in time, with the Romans referring to the region as Germania Inferior ("Lower" Germania). It is a reference to the Low Countries' downriver location at the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta near the North Sea . From 1551, the designation Nederlands received strong competition from the name Nederduytsch (literally "Low Dutch", Dutch being used in its archaic sense covering all continental West Germanic languages). It
11968-624: The borders of other standard language areas. In most cases, the heavy influence of the standard language has broken the dialect continuum . Examples are the Gronings dialect spoken in Groningen as well as the closely related varieties in adjacent East Frisia (Germany). Kleverlandish is a dialect spoken in southern Gelderland , the northern tip of Limburg , and northeast of North Brabant (Netherlands), but also in adjacent parts of North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany). Limburgish ( Limburgs )
12104-523: The capital Paramaribo. Protesters accused the government of President Chan Santokhi of corruption. They stormed the National Assembly, demanding the government to resign. However, the government condemned the protests. The Republic of Suriname is a representative democratic republic, based on the Constitution of 1987 . The legislative branch of government consists of a 51-member unicameral National Assembly , simultaneously and popularly elected for
12240-479: The case with the Gronings dialect , which is considered a variety of the Dutch Low Saxon regional language, but it is relatively distinct from other Dutch Low Saxon varieties. Also, some Dutch dialects are more remote from the Dutch standard language than some varieties of a regional language are. Within the Netherlands, a further distinction is made between a regional language and a separate language, which
12376-553: The close of the 18th century, with (Hoog)Duytsch establishing itself as the Dutch exonym for German during this same period. In the 19th century Germany saw the rise of the categorisation of dialects, with German dialectologists terming the German dialects spoken in the mountainous south of Germany as Hochdeutsch ("High German"). Subsequently, German dialects spoken in the north were designated as Niederdeutsch ("Low German"). The names for these dialects were calqued by Dutch linguists as Nederduits and Hoogduits . As
12512-602: The commander. After the creation of the Statute of the Kingdom of the Netherlands , the Royal Netherlands Army was entrusted with the defense of Suriname, while the defense of the Netherlands Antilles was the responsibility of the Royal Netherlands Navy . The army set up a separate Troepenmacht in Suriname (Forces in Suriname, TRIS). Upon independence in 1975, this force was turned into
12648-532: The country's English name was changed from "Surinam" to "Suriname" in January 1978, but "Surinam" can still be found in English, such as Surinam Airways and the Surinam toad . The older English name is reflected in the English pronunciation, / ˈ sj ʊər ɪ n æ m , - n ɑː m / . In Dutch , the official language of Suriname, the pronunciation is [ˌsyːriˈnaːmə] , with a schwa terminal vowel and
12784-472: The course of fifteen centuries. During that period, they forced Old Frisian back from the western coast to the north of the Low Countries, and influenced or even replaced Old Saxon spoken in the east (contiguous with the Low German area). On the other hand, Dutch has been replaced in adjacent lands in present-day France and Germany. The division into Old, Middle and Modern Dutch is mostly conventional, since
12920-540: The declaration of independence of Indonesia, Western New Guinea , the "wild east" of the Dutch East Indies , remained a Dutch colony until 1962, known as Netherlands New Guinea . Despite prolonged Dutch presence, the Dutch language is not spoken by many Papuans, the colony having been ceded to Indonesia in 1963. Dutch-speaking immigrant communities can also be found in Australia and New Zealand. The 2011 Australian census showed 37,248 people speaking Dutch at home. At
13056-603: The development of a separate Dutch language. It was spoken by the descendants of the Salian Franks who occupied what is now the southern Netherlands , northern Belgium , part of northern France, and parts of the Lower Rhine regions of Germany. The High German consonant shift, moving over Western Europe from south to west, caused a differentiation with the Central and High Franconian in Germany. The latter would as
13192-474: The devil? ... I forsake the devil"). If only for its poetic content, the most famous Old Dutch sentence is probably Hebban olla vogala nestas hagunnan, hinase hic enda tu, wat unbidan we nu ("All birds have started making nests, except me and you, what are we waiting for"), is dated to around the year 1100, written by a Flemish monk in a convent in Rochester , England . Since the sentence speaks to
13328-489: The end of the 19th century. In the countryside, until World War I , many elementary schools continued to teach in Dutch, and the Catholic Church continued to preach and teach the catechism in Dutch in many parishes. During the second half of the 19th century, Dutch was banned from all levels of education by both Prussia and France and lost most of its functions as a cultural language. In both Germany and France,
13464-611: The equator , over 90% of its territory is covered by rainforests , the highest proportion of forest cover in the world . Suriname is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north, French Guiana to the east, Guyana to the west, and Brazil to the south. It is the smallest country in South America by both population and territory, with around 612,985 inhabitants in an area of approximately 163,820 square kilometers (63,251 square miles). The capital and largest city
13600-552: The forefathers") at the mouth of the Marowijne River . While the larger Arawak and Carib tribes lived along the coast and savanna, smaller groups of indigenous people lived in the inland rainforest, such as the Akurio , Trió , Warao , and Wayana . Beginning in the 16th century, French , Spanish and English explorers visited the area. A century later, Dutch and English settlers established plantation colonies along
13736-415: The imagination, it is often erroneously stated as the oldest Dutch sentence. Old Dutch naturally evolved into Middle Dutch . The year 1150 is often cited as the time of the discontinuity, but it actually marks a time of profuse Dutch writing; during this period a rich Medieval Dutch literature developed. There was at that time no overarching standard language ; Middle Dutch is rather a collective name for
13872-711: The influence of the Burgundian Ducal Court in Dijon ( Brussels after 1477). The dialects of Flanders and Brabant were the most influential around this time. The process of standardisation became much stronger at the start of the 16th century, mainly based on the urban dialect of Antwerp . The 1585 fall of Antwerp to the Spanish army led to a flight to the northern Netherlands, where the Dutch Republic declared its independence from Spain. This influenced
14008-563: The language now known as Dutch. In the Low Countries Dietsch or its Early Modern Dutch form Duytsch as an endonym for Dutch gradually went out of common use and was gradually replaced by the Dutch endonym Nederlands . This designation (first attested in 1482) started at the Burgundian court in the 15th century, although the use of neder , laag , bas , and inferior ("nether" or "low") to refer to
14144-482: The late 1980s. National elections were held in 1987. The National Assembly adopted a new constitution that allowed Bouterse to remain in charge of the army. Dissatisfied with the government, Bouterse summarily dismissed the ministers in 1990, by telephone. This event became popularly known as the "Telephone Coup". His power began to wane after the 1991 elections. At the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul , Suriname became
14280-629: The least (adults 15%, children 1%). The decline of the West Frisian language in Friesland occupies a middle position (adults 44%, children 22%). Dialects are most often spoken in rural areas, but many cities have a distinct city dialect. For example, the city of Ghent has very distinct "g", "e" and "r" sounds that greatly differ from its surrounding villages. The Brussels dialect combines Brabantian with words adopted from Walloon and French . Some dialects had, until recently, extensions across
14416-557: The main stress on the third syllable. Indigenous settlement of Suriname dates back to 3,000 BC. The largest tribes were the Arawak , a nomadic coastal tribe that lived from hunting and fishing. They were the first inhabitants in the area. The Carib also settled in the area and conquered the Arawak by using their superior sailing ships. They settled in Galibi ( Kupali Yumï , meaning "tree of
14552-523: The many rivers in the fertile Guiana plains. The earliest documented colony in Guiana was an English settlement named Marshall's Creek along the Suriname River. After that, there was another short-lived English colony called Surinam that lasted from 1650 to 1667. Disputes arose between the Dutch and the English for control of this territory. In 1667, during negotiations leading to the Treaty of Breda after
14688-437: The modern standard languages . In this age no standard languages had yet developed, while a perfect West Germanic dialect continuum remained present; the division reflects the contingent future contribution dialect groups would have to the later languages. The early form of Dutch was a set of Franconian dialects spoken by the Salian Franks in the 5th century. These happened to develop through Middle Dutch to Modern Dutch over
14824-422: The next three days , along with Rambocus and Jiwansingh Sheombar (who was also involved in the fourth counter-coup attempt). The brutal civil war between the Suriname army and Maroons loyal to rebel leader Ronnie Brunswijk , begun in 1986, continued and its effects further weakened Bouterse's position during the 1990s. Due to the civil war, more than 10,000 Surinamese, mostly Maroons, fled to French Guiana in
14960-470: The original Dutch language version dating from colonial times remains the authoritative version. Up to half a million native speakers reside in the United States, Canada and Australia combined, and historical linguistic minorities on the verge of extinction remain in parts of France and Germany. Dutch is one of the closest relatives of both German and English, and is colloquially said to be "roughly in between" them. Dutch, like English, has not undergone
15096-795: The partnership agreement among the members of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States and the European Union. On 17 February 2005, the leaders of Barbados and Suriname signed the "Agreement for the deepening of bilateral cooperation between the Government of Barbados and the Government of the Republic of Suriname." On 23–24 April 2009, both nations formed a Joint Commission in Paramaribo , Suriname, to improve relations and to expand into various areas of cooperation. They held
15232-408: The plantations where they had worked for several generations in favor of the capital city, Paramaribo . Some of them were able to purchase the plantations they worked on, especially in the district of Para and Coronie. Their descendants still live on those grounds today. Several plantation owners did not pay their former enslaved workers the pay they owed them for the ten years following 1863. They paid
15368-527: The predominant colloquial language out of the area's 22 million Dutch-speakers. Limburgish , spoken in both Belgian Limburg and Netherlands Limburg and in adjacent parts in Germany, is considered a dialect in Belgium, while having obtained the official status of regional language in the Netherlands. Limburgish has been influenced by the Ripuarian varieties like the Colognian dialect , and has had
15504-582: The president. Bouterse was elected as president of Suriname in 2010. The Netherlands in July 2014 dropped Suriname as a member of its development program. Since 1991, the United States has maintained positive relations with Suriname. The two countries work together through the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CBSI) and the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Suriname also receives military funding from
15640-411: The provinces of Gelderland , Flevoland , Friesland and Utrecht . This group, which is not Low Franconian but instead Low Saxon and close to neighbouring Low German, has been elevated by the Netherlands (and by Germany) to the legal status of streektaal ( regional language ) according to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages . It is regarded as Dutch for a number of reasons. From
15776-471: The raids. Colonists built defenses, which were significant enough that they were shown on 18th-century maps. The colonists also mounted armed campaigns against the Maroons, who generally escaped through the rainforest, which they knew much better than the colonists did. To end hostilities, in the 18th century, the European colonial authorities signed several peace treaties with different tribes. They granted
15912-515: The rest of the text lack any consensus. The Franks emerged in the southern Netherlands ( Salian Franks ) and central Germany ( Ripuarian Franks ), and later descended into Gaul . The name of their kingdom survives in that of France. Although they ruled the Gallo-Romans for nearly 300 years, their language, Frankish , became extinct in most of France and was replaced by later forms of the language throughout Luxembourg and Germany in around
16048-423: The rights of Dutch speakers, mostly referred to as "Flemish". However, the dialect variation was a serious disadvantage in the face of the standardised francophony . Since standardisation is a lengthy process, Dutch-speaking Belgium associated itself with the standard language that had already developed in the Netherlands over the centuries. Therefore, the situation in Belgium is essentially no different from that in
16184-524: The same branch of the West Germanic languages as Old English (i.e. Anglo-Frisian ) and are therefore genetically more closely related to English and Scots than to Dutch. The different influences on the respective languages, however, particularly that of Norman French on English and Dutch on West Frisian, have rendered English quite distinct from West Frisian, and West Frisian less distinct from Dutch than from English. Although under heavy influence of
16320-455: The set of Franconian dialects (i.e. West Germanic varieties that are assumed to have evolved from Frankish ) spoken in the Low Countries during the Early Middle Ages , from around the 5th to the 12th century. Old Dutch is mostly recorded on fragmentary relics, and words have been reconstructed from Middle Dutch and Old Dutch loanwords in French. Old Dutch is regarded as the primary stage in
16456-724: The slaves was notoriously brutal even by the standards of the time —historian C. R. Boxer wrote that "man's inhumanity to man just about reached its limits in Surinam" —and many slaves escaped the plantations. In November 1795, the Society was nationalized by the Batavian Republic and from then on the Batavian Republic and its legal successors (the Kingdom of Holland and the Kingdom of the Netherlands) governed
16592-472: The smallest independent South American state to win its first ever Olympic medal as Anthony Nesty won gold in the 100-metre butterfly . The first half of 1999 was marked by non-violent national protests against poor general economic and social conditions. By mid-year, the Netherlands tried Bouterse in absentia on drug-smuggling charges. He was convicted and sentenced to prison but remained in Suriname. On 19 July 2010, Bouterse returned to power when he
16728-450: The territory as a national colony – barring two periods of British occupation, between 1799 and 1802, and between 1804 and 1816. With the help of the native South Americans living in the adjoining rain forests, runaway slaves established a new and unique culture in the interior that was highly successful in its own right. They were known collectively in English as Maroons , in French as Nèg'Marrons (literally meaning "brown negroes", that
16864-545: The time are generally split into three dialect groups: Ingvaeonic (North Sea Germanic), Istvaeonic (Weser–Rhine Germanic) and Irminonic (Elbe Germanic). It appears that the Frankish tribes fit primarily into the Istvaeonic dialect group with certain Ingvaeonic influences towards the northwest, which are still seen in modern Dutch. The Frankish language itself is not directly attested, the only possible exception being
17000-466: The transition between them was very gradual. One of the few moments when linguists can detect something of a revolution is when the Dutch standard language emerged and quickly established itself. The development of the Dutch language is illustrated by the following sentence in Old, Middle and Modern Dutch: Among the Indo-European languages , Dutch is grouped within the Germanic languages , meaning it shares
17136-484: The urban dialects of the province of Holland . In 1637, a further important step was made towards a unified language, when the Statenvertaling , the first major Bible translation into Dutch, was created that people from all over the new republic could understand. It used elements from various, even Dutch Low Saxon , dialects but was predominantly based on the urban dialects of Holland of post 16th century. In
17272-415: The workers with the property rights of the ground of the plantation in order to escape their debt to the workers. As a plantation colony, Suriname had an economy dependent on labor-intensive commodity crops. To make up for a shortage of labor, the Dutch recruited and transported contract or indentured laborers from the Dutch East Indies (modern Indonesia) and India (the latter through an arrangement with
17408-605: Was convicted and sentenced in absentia in the Netherlands to 11 years of imprisonment for drug trafficking. He was the main suspect in the court case concerning the December murders, the 1982 assassination of opponents of military rule in Fort Zeelandia , Paramaribo. He served as president between 2010 and 2020. These two cases still strain relations between the Netherlands and Suriname. The Dutch government stated during that time that it would maintain limited contact with
17544-553: Was convicted by a Surinamese court on 29 November 2019 and given a 20-year sentence for his role in the 1982 killings. After winning the 2020 elections , Chan Santokhi was the sole nomination for president of Suriname . On 13 July, Santokhi was elected president by acclamation in an uncontested election . He was inaugurated on 16 July in a ceremony without public attendance due to the COVID-19 pandemic . In February 2023, there were heavy protests against rising living costs in
17680-445: Was driven by African slave labour until the abolition of slavery in 1863, after which indentured servants were recruited mostly from British India and the Dutch East Indies . In 1954, Suriname became a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands . On 25 November 1975, it became independent following negotiations with the Dutch government. Suriname continues to maintain close diplomatic, economic, and cultural ties with
17816-472: Was elected as the president of Suriname. Before his election in 2010, he, along with 24 others, had been charged with the murders of 15 prominent dissidents in the December murders . However, in 2012, two months before the verdict in the trial, the National Assembly extended its amnesty law and provided Bouterse and the others with amnesty of these charges. He was reelected on 14 July 2015. However, Bouterse
17952-579: Was led by Fred Ormskerk , the second by Marxist-Leninists , the third by Wilfred Hawker , and the fourth by Surendre Rambocus . Hawker escaped from prison during the fourth counter-coup attempt, but he was captured and summarily executed. Between 2 am and 5 am on 7 December 1982, the military, under Bouterse's leadership, rounded up 13 prominent citizens who had criticized the military dictatorship and held them at Fort Zeelandia in Paramaribo. The dictatorship had all these men executed over
18088-500: Was replaced by Afrikaans , a separate but partially mutually intelligible daughter language of Dutch. Afrikaans, depending on the definition used, may be considered a sister language , spoken, to some degree, by at least 16 million people, mainly in South Africa and Namibia , and evolving from Cape Dutch dialects. In South America, it is the native language of the majority of the population of Suriname , and spoken as
18224-423: Was the name given to the Suriname River by Lord Willoughby in the 1660s in honour of the Duke of Norfolk and Earl of Surrey when an English colony was established under a grant from King Charles II . This folk etymology can be found repeated in later English-language sources. When the territory was taken over by the Dutch, it became part of a group of colonies known as Dutch Guiana . The official spelling of
18360-527: Was under foreign control. In the 19th century, the East Indies trade started to dwindle, and with it the importance of Malacca as a trading post. The Dutch state officially ceded Malacca to the British in 1825. It took until 1957 for Malaya to gain its independence. Despite this, the Dutch language is rarely spoken in Malacca or Malaysia and only limited to foreign nationals able to speak the language. After
18496-461: Was used in the Dutch East Indies (now mostly Indonesia ) by a limited educated elite of around 2% of the total population, including over 1 million indigenous Indonesians, until it was banned in 1957, but the ban was lifted afterwards. About a fifth of the Indonesian language can be traced to Dutch, including many loan words . Indonesia's Civil Code has not been officially translated, and
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