Reviewed by Elly van Gelderen, Arizona State University

Suriname is linguistically well known for Sranan Tongo, an English-based creole that serves as a lingua franca for the South American country. However, many other languages are also spoken in Suriname, including Javanese, Chinese, Arawak, Carib, Maroon, and a variety of Hindi. Dutch is the official language, and although it has been spoken in Suriname for at least 300 years, very little research has been done on the linguistic features of this variety. Well into the twentieth century, it was argued that Surinamese Dutch was identical to the Dutch spoken in The Netherlands. Furthermore, Surinamese Dutch has not been mentioned in the major grammars, even those that investigated varieties other than Standard Dutch. Therefore, Christina De Kleine’s study is a welcome investigation into the language.

The data come from spontaneous speech of Creoles (i.e. descendants of West African slaves and Europeans), who make up about a third of a population. The Creole’s variety of Dutch was selected because it is the closest to European Dutch and because the Creoles are politically and educationally dominant (5). Ch. 2 reviews previous studies on Surinamese Dutch and discusses the controversies that surround its acceptance as a genuine variety. Ch. 3 provides a history of the use of Dutch in Suriname, and Ch. 4 reviews the current sociolinguistic situation of the country.

Chs. 5, 6, and 7 discuss the verb phrase, the noun phrase, and the clause, respectively. The main differences between Surinamese and European Dutch concern valency and the tense, mood, and aspect system. For example, although the future auxiliary gaan ‘go’ is quite common in Surinamese, it is used in very limited ways in European Dutch. The Surinamese Dutch phrase ga je natuurlijk toestemming moeten hebben [go you naturally permission must have] ‘you are of course going to have to have permission’ (51) is ungrammatical in European Dutch, which would instead use moet je natuurlijk toestemming hebben [must you naturally permission have].

The noun phrase of the two varieties differs, for example, in the use of die: it functions as a demonstrative in European Dutch but as an article in Surinamese Dutch. In contrast to European, Surinamese plurals are often not marked on either the noun or by agreement on the verb and pronouns are losing grammatical gender. Additionally, word order in Surinamese Dutch is not strictly verb-second and subordinate clauses are not strictly subject-object-verb. Surinamese clauses are introduced by zeg ‘say’ and van ‘of’ and relative pronouns are replaced by dat ‘that’.

Ch. 8 discusses the differences between Surinamese and European Dutch in terms of internal and external change, and Ch. 9 provides a summary and conclusion. A lengthy glossed transcription of interviews with three of the Creoles offers a glimpse of the language and the method of interviewing.

This book provides fascinating data on Surinamese Dutch, especially on auxiliaries, demonstratives and articles, word order, and complementizers. It also offers a nice overview of the sociolinguistic situation and history of Dutch in Suriname.