Adding variant subtags 'aluku' and 'nduyka' and 'pamaka' for dialects

[Pascal Vaillant]

> 
> > I think that the term 'bush' is currently not looked on as so bad?? 
> > (except that some may use it to mean 'primitive' rather than simply 
> > 'divorced' from some perhaps less palatable ways of life).
> 
> Considering that "Aukan" or "Busi Nenge Tongo," or whatever we elect to 
> call it, is a separate language from English, I think we would be 
> well-advised not to try to apply our English-based assumptions about 
> what terms are and are not taboo or offensive. 

Quite right.

> I think we can safely  
> rely on Pascal Vaillant to inform us about any names that CELIA may have 
> identified as offensive.  If any new information turns up later, 
> comments and descriptions can be changed.
> 

Yes. There is a full 25 pages article discussing precisely the suject, written
by two CELIA linguists [1]. There actually IS a common, and often considered
derogative, description, but it is not "businenge": it is "taki taki" (etym.
"talk talk", which might carry somme connotations equivalent to "jabber" or
"broken speech"). The article [1] gives extensive discussion about the actual
uses of the many different terms used to refer to the Eastern Surinamese
Maroon English Creoles (three variants + a recent koineized urban variety),
including the (more recent) uses of "taki taki" to refer to the vehicular,
xenolectal variety (French or French Creole speakers trying to approximate the
koineized variety, sometimes mixing in some Sranan Tongo, a parent English Creole
language of the Suriname).

Needless to say, the fact that words like "negro" or "bush" have acquired
negative connotations is highly dependent on a given cultural context. There
is obviously nothing negative in the *referents* themselves (if you believe
in referential semantics ;-)) Actually they acquire negative connotations by
the repeated use in negative collocations, whose negativeness lies in the
prejudices of the speakers who utter them... but this would be yet another
long discussion.

I am working on the submission form for the new description tag for 'djk'.

Regards,

Pascal Vaillant


[1] Isabelle Léglise & Bettina Migge, "Le «taki-taki», une langue parlée en
Guyane?", p. 133-157 in *Pratiques et représentations linguistiques en Guyane*,
I. Léglise & B. Migge (eds.). Paris (France) : IRD Éditions (Institut de
Recherche pour le Développement), 2007. ISBN (978-) 2-7099-1630-1.