As a child I was very keen on Geography and knew about the three GUYANAs.. British, Dutch and the French. The French Guyanne is still part of France and the other two gained their independence from the metropole, Guyanese in Georgetown speaking English and Surinamese in Paramaribo speaking Dutch. The Guyanese started looking west to Canada and USA but the Surinamese looked north to Holland . In fact currently there may be more citizens of Holland of Surinamese origin than Surinamese living in Suriname.
Who are the Surinamese? The Original inhabitants are the Indigenous people, Amerindians.
The four most numerous Indigenous Peoples are the Kaliña (Carib), Lokono (Arawak), Trio (Tirio, Tareno) and Wayana.
who came next ?
The British, the Dutch, the Portugese, the Spanish but I think Suriname had attracted the Dutch and the English and became Dutch after the Anglo-Dutch war's conclusion.
Africans came as slaves, some ran away to the Interior, Maroons who are the closet genetically to Africa, as much as 98%.
When the Slavery was abolished, Indentured labourers from the State of Bihar in India started arriving, about 63 different ships. Also Jawanese from their other colony, Indonesia . Chinese arrived as traders and there had been much mingling so, we now have
Creoles
Hindoostanis (of Indian origin)
Jawanese
Maroons
Indigenous Indians
Chinese, old and new migrations
and you could feel the tolerance between the races and the happy acceptance of each other.
Thus amalgam and the colonial power made the inhabitants speak four languages each
Dutch
English
Sranan Tango which is a mixture of a lot of languages and the lingua franca among people along with Dutch.
and each of the cultural groups have maintained their language but in a very hybridized form
Hindoostanis speak a form of Hindi called Srinami
Jawanese have their language which will not be understood as Indonesian
The africans have Saramaccan and other dialects evolved in their isolation
Chinese dialects
and one thing i noticed with pride was the acceptance of each other and showing respect for each other . So it is common to hear two chinese speaking chinese in front of others , the othes paying no attention to it. I was greeted by all sorts of people including some homeless ones.
It was a delightful visit ..
and to think that there is a direct flight from Miami ? 4 hours and thirty minutes arriving at the ungodly hour of midnight at an airport built by the Americans 37 km outside the city of Paramaribo.
Let your pleasant journey begin.
and not to forget the tiny Jewish community which predates Africans and Hindoostanis and Jawanese..
