A new look at the Portuguese element in Saramaccan

Smith, Norval; Cardoso, Hugo C.

doi:10.5334/jpl.14

Cited by 22 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…Saramaccan plant names were compared with names in Indigenous and European languages in published literature, etymological libraries, and databases (Fanshawe 1949;Smith 1987;Van't Klooster et al 2003;Smith and Cardoso 2004;Courtz 2008;Van der Sijs 2010;Van Donselaar 2013;Van Andel et al 2014;Harper 2020). For the African plant names, we used the JSTOR Global Plant database (2020), the compendium on useful plants of West Tropical Africa (Burkill 1985(Burkill -2010, encyclopedias on local and scientific plant names (e.g., Quattrocchi 2002Quattrocchi , 2012, the MBG database on plant species collected in the DRC, previous work on this database by Fundiko et al (2015), and ethnobotanical literature for the DRC (e.g., Latham and Konda ku Mbuta 2017) and Angola (Lautenschläger 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Morphological associations with 14 animal species Pagination not final (cite DOI) / Pagination provisoire (citer le DOI) were made. Porcupines appeared most regularly; in "makayasubi" (Chrysobalanus icaco L.), "makaya" seems to be derived from the Hausa word "makaya" for porcupine (Robinson 1914), while "subi" (meaning to climb) stems from the Portuguese word "subir" (Smith and Cardoso 2004), referring to the spiny animal that climbs the small tree to eat its fruits (Plants for a Future Database 2020). Although the Hausa word "makaya" has lost its meaning in Saramaccan as a separate word for a spiny creature, the name "maka mbeti" (meaning spiny animal) is still in use for the Brazilian porcupine (Coendou prehensilis) (SIL 2003).…”

Section: References To Animalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Daly, "(matu)mboomba" in Saramaccan, is a large tree that grows in lowland rainforests (Fern 2020). While "matu" means forest, derived from the Portuguese "mato" (Smith and Cardoso 2004), "bo(e)mba" refers to a goodhearted Maroon water god who dwells in rapids (Benjamins and Snelleman 1917). The name of this god seems to be derived from "mbombo" or "bumba", the creator god of the Bakuba people in the DRC.…”

Section: References To Supernatural Beingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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African elements in Saramaccan Maroon plant names in Suriname

Klooster

Haabo

Berg

et al. 2022

Botany

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The ancestors of the Saramaccan Maroons, who were brought as enslaved Africans to Suriname, used their ethnobotanical knowledge and native languages to name the flora in their new environment. Little is known about the influence of African languages on Saramaccan plant naming. We hypothesized that Saramaccan plant names were more influenced by Central African languages than found so far based on ethnobotanical research, because data of the Central African region was scarce. We compiled a new database on Saramaccan plant names and compared these names with an unpublished plant name database from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the earlier published NATRAPLAND database on Afro-Surinamese plant names to find comparable plant names for botanically related species in Africa. We further analyzed form, meaning, function, and categories of Saramaccan plant name components by means of dictionaries and grammars. In total, 39% of the Saramaccan plant names had an African origin, of which 44% were African retentions, 54% were innovations and 2% were misidentifications with botanical links to Africa via other plant species. Most retentions were of Central African origin (62%). The Bantu language that contributed most to Saramaccan plant names was Kikongo, followed by West African Kwa languages. Plant names reveal important information on the African origin of the Saramaccans, and deserve more scientific attention.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: References To Animalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: References To Supernatural Beingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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African elements in Saramaccan Maroon plant names in Suriname

Klooster

Haabo

Berg

et al. 2022

Botany

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show abstract

“…A study of the Saramaccan lexicon by Smith & Cardoso (2004) which pitched Portuguesederived lexemes against English-derived lexemes (i.e., ignoring the other, minority lexical sources) found a nearly equal distribution in the domain of nouns (176 from Ptg., 179 from Eng. ), a smaller but still highly significant proportion of Portuguese-derived adjectives (27 from Ptg., 51 from Eng.…”

Section: A Foundational Role?mentioning

confidence: 99%