¹ For the language of the Saramacca Negroes, cf. H. Schuchardt, Die Sprache der Saramakka-Neger in Surinam (Amsterdam, 1914 = VAWAmsterdam NR.16.4); and the texts given in Herskovits' Suriname Folklore (cf. fn. 4); Proverbs of the Saramacca Bush-Negroes (475–81) and Bush-Negro Songs (529–607).

² I.e. based on a pidgin form of speech, which has become the only language of a speech-community. Cf. Leonard Bloomfield, Language 473–4 (New York, 1933).

³ Cf. R. Simons, Het Neger-Engelsch: Spraakkunst en Taaleigen 9–10 (Suriname, 1941).

⁴ Melville J. Herskovits and Frances S. Herskovits, Suriname Folklore (New York, 1936; Columbia University Contributions to Anthropology, No. 27); the abbreviation H refers to this text, and also to personal communications from Professor and Mrs. Herskovits, to whom thanks are due for their interest and assistance in this study, for aid in obtaining the help of a native speaker of Taki-Taki, and for the gift of a phonograph record of his speech.

References are given for all examples cited, in parentheses following the examples. References to the narrative texts in Suriname Folklore (150–430) are made by page and line number; thus, 248.10 = page 248, line 10. References to the Riddles (434–50), Proverbs (454–70) and Dreams (48–6) in Suriname Folklore are made by the letters R, P, and D respectively, followed by the number of the item; thus P7 = Proverb no. 7. A reference preceded by § is a cross-reference to another section of this paper.

⁵ Being purely descriptive and synchronic, this paper simply analyzes the material furnished in H's texts and E's supplementary material (cf. fn. 6). By its very nature, therefore, it does not treat historical problems (e.g. the African or other origin of features of Taki-Taki), or distinguish the relative age of elements in the present-day language. Such matters, although of considerable interest from the comparative point of view, are not relevant to strictly descriptive analysis and belong in other, differently oriented discussions.

⁶ Hereinafter referred to as E. Dr. Einaar read aloud tales 1 and 17 from Suriname Folklore for me in person, and tales 3 and 96 on a phonograph record. He also dictated further original sentences and dialogue material, and gave information on the pronunciation of individual words. I am very grateful to him for his kindness and collaboration, which was indispensable for the, work of analysis, especially in the determination of stress and its function in morphology and syntax.

Thanks are also due to Prof. Hans Kurath for reading and criticizing the paper in an earlier draft.

⁷ Simons 21.

⁸ Historically, these alternations are traceable to the extensive elision and syncope that has taken place, especially in unstressed vowels; to the extensive borrowing of Dutch words, creating many pairs of doublets among related words of English and Dutch origin; and to dialect mixture within Taki-Taki itself.

⁹ It should be noted that, although gi- for (prep.) and gí give (vb.) are undoubtedly both from English give (cf. Suriname Folklore 118), they are not identical from the point of view of Taki-Taki linguistic structure. The form gi- for is syntactically a preposition, is unstressed, and is a bound form; whereas gí give is a verb, is stressed, and is a free form.