Dictation Sranantongo

A public dictation for all those who speak Sranantongo. The best speller wins the translation dictionary Sranan-Dutch/Dutch-Sranan. Writer Cynthia McLeod and Rabin Baldewsingh, alderman in The Hague, will dictate the text. Winternachten provides pen and paper. Dutch and Sranantongo spoken.

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Information

Date and time Saturday 13 January 2007 20:10 tot 21:30 uur
Location Filmhuis - zaal 6

Something new for the Netherlands! A public dictation for all those who speak Sranantongo. The lingua franca of Surinam has had an official spelling since the 1980s. But who masters it? We monitored the state of affairs: speakers of Sranantongo tested their knowledge. The best speller was singer Denise Jannah. She won the translation dictionary Sranan-Dutch/Dutch-Sranan. The dictation was compiled by Cynthia McLeod. She and Rabin Baldewsingh, alderman in The Hague, dictated the text. Writer Clark Accord, musician Ronald Snijders, singer and actor Juan Wells and actress Gerda Havertong were among the Surinamese/Dutch participants. Dutch/Sranantongo spoken.

Cynthia Mc Leod

(Suriname, 1936) made her writer's debut with Hoe duur was de suiker? (How Costly Was the Sugar?, 1987), the novel that made her the most famous Surinamese writer overnight and was adapted for film in 2013. She was the first to describe the history, the slaving past and the colonization of her country from a Surinamese perspective. As an expert in the field, she lectures about the history of slavery at US and Canadian universities and organizes educational field and city trips. She has written historic novels, including De Vrije Negerin Elisabeth, gevangene van kleur (The Free Negress Elizabeth, Prisoner of Colour, 1992), as well as studies, children's books and children's musicals. Her No kwik in het bos (No Mercury in the Forest, 2017) is a YA novel about a ten-year-old girl and the dangers of mercury in the gold-mining process. McLeod is a daughter of Johan Ferrier, the first president of Suriname.
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Cavy G.

aka CG aka SirCavyG.O aka Cavy-R aka Cavy Rocc aka Cavlar has been a fan of Hiphop music since he was ten. When he was twelve he left Surinam and came to the Netherlands. In highschool he met DNG, who supplied him with the latest tapes. At age sixteen he started writing himself. Occassionally he freestyled for fun but later on he seriously started writing lyrics. Since his rap friends DNG, Diversity and Slowgo shared the same passion they hooked up and started the rap group Coup the Villz.
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Rabin Baldewsingh

(Surinam, 1962) is the National Coordinator against Discrimination and Racism since 2021. Baldewsingh was alderman in The Hague for 12 years, from 2006 to 2018. Prior to that, he was a documentary editor and, from 1998, a Hague city councillor. As alderman, he held various policy areas in his portfolio, including social affairs and employment, neighbourhood approach, sports, city management and environmental policy, public health, integration, personnel and organisation and civic affairs. Besides his work as NCDR, he participates as a dual PhD student in the programme of Leiden University Dual PhD Centre The Hague. His dissertation will be on Sarnámi as a language in oppression.
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Eva Essed-Fruin

is a linguist. She was manager of the institute for education of teachers (IOL) in Surinam until 1987, and teacher Dutch in this institute until 1994. Since 2005 she is part of the central board of editors for the Journal for Surinamese Affairs, a thorough magazine, very much accesible for the general audience, with space for articles, reviews, debate and comment.
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René Hart

has been a teacher since 1968. He published the text book Surinamese Language and Culture and has developed a whole teaching method in Surinamese language and culture. In doing so has has made an attempt to offer Sranantongo at beginners' level. His method is called Mi Tori (My Story). His goal is to have Sranantongo (Surinamese) reintroduced in Surinam. René Hart lives in Amsterdam.
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