(last updated 2009-09-09) LANGUAGE SUBTAG REGISTRATION FORM 1. Name of requester: Pascal Vaillant 2. E-mail address of requester: pascal.vaillant at guyane.univ-ag.fr 3. Record Requested: Type: variant Subtag: ndyuka Description: Ndyuka dialect Description: Aukan dialect Prefix: djk Comments: Ndyuka dialect of the "Busi Nenge Tongo" English-based Creole continuum in Eastern Suriname and Western French Guiana 4. Intended meaning of the subtag: The variant subtag 'ndyuka' is intended to mean the Ndyuka dialect (sometimes also called Aukan) of the Nenge English-based Creole language of Eastern Suriname, spoken in large parts of Eastern Suriname and in the border regions of French Guiana. English-based Creole languages have emerged in Suriname among maroon communities (escaped slaves of African descent) since the early 18th century. They depart from the mainstream English-based Creole of Suriname, Sranan Tongo, by some linguistic innovations (such as phonetic changes), and by a smaller influence of Dutch, language of the former colonial power (1667-1975), and official language of the country. Some dialects spoken in the Eastern parts of Suriname and the Western parts of French Guiana are closely related to each other and have been regarded as one single language with linguistic variants: aluku, ndyuka, and pamaka. The Ethnologue language database maintained by the SIL has an entry for "Aukan" (an alternate name of Ndyuka), and refers to "Aluku" and "Paramaccan" as dialects. More recently, Goury and Migge (2003) have referred to the language as "Nenge" and studied its three variants. Among the three dialects, Ndyuka is the one with the largest population and geographic extension. At present, the ISO 639 standard (reflecting the structure of the Ethnologue database) has one three-letter code, 'djk' (from 'Djuka', a variant name of "Ndyuka") and names the language Aukan. Leaving aside the fact that the language code -somewhat inappropriately- refers to the whole language by the name of its most important variant, this fits with the widely accepted description of the aluku/ndyuka/ pamaka continuum as one language, distinct from Sranan Tongo or from some other maroon Creoles (such as Saramaccan). This also leaves open the possibility to use variant language subtags to refer more precisely to the three dialects. With the extension of literacy among the concerned populations, the emergence of a local literature, and the recent use of digital corpora by linguists and researchers, it is relevant to ask for the registration of language tags or subtags able to identify the above-mentioned language and its dialects. 5. Reference to published description of the language (book or article): John Holm, 1989. Pidgins and Creoles. Vol. II: Reference Survey. Chapter 10, Section 2 ("Creole English in Suriname"). Cambridge (UK), Cambridge University Press (Cambridge Language Surveys). p. 432-444. Laurence Goury & Bettina Migge, 2003. Grammaire du nenge(e): Introduction aux langues aluku, ndyuka et pamaka. Paris (France), Éditions IRD. Donald Winford & Bettina Migge, 2004. "Suriname creoles". In *A handbook of varieties of English: Morphology and syntax*, E. Schneider (ed.), p. 482-516. Berlin (Germany), Mouton. George Huttar and Mary Huttar, 1994. Ndyuka. Descriptive Grammars. London (UK), Routledge. Laurence Goury, 2003. Le Ndyuka. Une Langue Créole Du Surinam Et De Guyane Française. Paris (France), L'Harmattan. 6. Any other relevant information: (file created 2009-09-09)