The research on the formation of (radical) creoles has seen an unprecedented intensification and diversification in the last 20 years. This book discusses, illustrates, and evaluates current research on creole formation based on an in-depth investigation of the processes and mechanisms that contributed to the emergence of the morphosyntactic system of the creoles of Suriname. The study draws on a rich corpus of a) natural conversational and elicited synchronic linguistic data from the Eastern Maroon Creole (EMC) and its main African substrate language, Gbe, b) published diachronic data from the EMC’s sister-language Sranan Tongo, and c) information on the early history of Suriname coming from socio-historical investigations. It suggests that mechanisms of deliberate and contact-induced change also involved in borrowing and particularly shift situations led to the initial formation of the creoles of Suriname while language-internal change played a role in their subsequent development.

Table of contents

Acknowledgements ix List of Abbreviations xi 1. Introduction 1–8 2. Current research on creole formation 9–26 3. The context of creole formation in Suriname 27–35 4. The European input 37–52 5. The African input: lexical retention 53–78 6. The African input: structural retention 79–106 7. Language-internal change 107–120 8. Conclusion and implications 121–129 Notes 130–134 References 135–145 Index of subjects 147 Index of names 148–149