About Spoken Languages
Every language is a source of unique knowledge and cultural expression. Smaller languages provide us with new perspectives on the world. They give words to cultural phenomena, show us how people communicate and how a community forms its identity.
In the lecture series ‘About Spoken Languages’ five academics shine their light on a smaller or less known (and sometimes not standardised) language.

Sranan Tongo
Sranan Tongo is a creole language, a language that resulted from contact between enslaved African people who spoke their native language and English-speaking and later Dutch-speaking colonists. This new pidgin language developed into a stable creole when following generations grew up speaking the language.
The numerous Caribbean creole languages are only around four centuries old, which has given linguists the chance to study the development of those languages. Modern-day Sranan Tongo and other Maroon languages like Saramaccan and Aukan all developed during English colonisation (1650-1667).
In 1903, Surinamese composer Johannes Nicolaas Helstone wrote the first grammar of Sranan Tongo in Sranan Tongo. This was in line with his aim to increase recognition of the recently liberated Surinamese people living in a society that was still strongly influenced by colonial structures.

Prof. dr. Abram de Swaan
Abram de Swaan (1942) is emeritus professor in social sciences. Between 1969 and 1991, he was an editor of cultural magazine De Gids. Together with Paul van den Bos, he created a series of TV documentaries. He was also co-founder, director and president of the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research at the University of Amsterdam. De Swaan has written weekly articles for the newspaper NRC Handelsblad, which have been published in three bundles. He was guest lecturer at various universities in the USA and in France. In 2008, he was awarded the PC Hooftprijs for his essays. His work has been translated into fourteen languages.

Language of instruction: Dutch
Your moderator: Diederik Burgersdijk

This lecture is part of the series About Spoken Languages.
Other lectures in this series:

6 March: Yiddish by Justus van de Kamp
20 March: Cappadocian, Pontic, Pharasiot by Dr. Mark Janse
27 March: Catalan by Dr. Eva J. Daussá
10 April: Palestinian Arabic by Dr. Nina van Kampen
22 May: Frisian by Dr. Alexia Kerkhof

€18 per lecture | entire series €95
student rate*: €6 per lecture | entire series €30

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*The student rate applies to students enrolled at a university or university of applied sciences. Select ‘Invoice’ as the payment method and indicate in the ‘Additional remarks’ field that you are a student.