Aucan
Ndyuka
St. Albans +2Highly multilingual Suriname, with its layered colonial history, is reflected at least in part in the languages spoken by Surinamese New Yorkers, who live largely in eastern Queens in and around Jamaica and celebrate the annual Sranan Dey event every August in Roy Wilkins Park. The two main community lingua francas appear to be be the distinctive Surinamese Dutch and Sranan Tongo, the English-based creole (with Dutch, Portuguese, and West African influences) spoken widely across different communities, but mother tongues spoken by at least some Surinamese New Yorkers include Sarnami (spoken by the Indo-Surinamese population) and the Maroon creole languages Aucan and Saamáka. There may well be others.
K
nown variously as Aucan, Okanisi, or Ndyuka, this Maroon creole language is one of those created by enslaved Africans and their descendants who liberated themselves by escpaing to Suriname’s interior. Today, more than a handful of speakers live within New York’s largely Queens-based Surinamese community. Among those encountered at the 2024 Sranan Dey celebration, two reported their original villages (Wanfinga, Kisai) are being in the interior rainforest, in the heart of the Okanisi territory on the Tapanahony River, while a third was from the Cottica Ndyuka, the large segment of the Okanisi population living in the coastal rainforest region east of Paramaribo (who speak a slightly different dialect of the language).
Note that the language above may be used throughout the New York area — this is just one significant site.