To the outside world, Suriname is known as a rather extraordinary country in South America in that it is a Dutch-speaking state on an otherwise almost totally Hispanic-speaking continent. Those who look closer, however, soon discover that Surinameís uniqueness lies more in the fact that it is home to almost twenty different languages, despite a population of less than half a million.
The aim of this atlas is twofold: first to introduce the reader to the linguistic complexity that abounds in Suriname, and second to afford the reader insight into the genesis, evolution, and salient linguistic features of the languages and language-families that are represented there. The atlas is designed to meet the needs of readers with little or no linguistic training and will be of great value to all students of the Caribbean, linguists, anthropologists, and historians.
