World Language Map

Where is Sranan Tongo spoken?

Sranan Tongo (Sranantongo) is an Indo-European language, spoken in Suriname and the Netherlands. It is marked on the map by a ringed point.

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Key

Language families (largest ten)

  • Atlantic-Congo
  • Austronesian
  • Sino-Tibetan
  • Indo-European
  • Afro-Asiatic
  • Nuclear Trans New Guinea
  • Otomanguean
  • Austroasiatic
  • Tai-Kadai
  • Pama-Nyungan

Everything else

  • All other families Smaller families, isolates and unclassified languages.
  • Point A language with no area map. The dot sits at its Glottolog position, in its family colour.

How to read the map. Each colour is a language family: a group of languages that share a common ancestor. The ten largest families have their own colour and every other family is grey. Areas are see-through, so where two languages share a place the colours mix. Tap anywhere to list every language whose area covers that spot. Areas are generalisations drawn from published atlases, many of them decades old, and cities are multilingual, so an area never says that everyone there speaks the language. A dot marks a language that has no area map. The family name is always given in words, because colour alone is hard to tell apart for some people.

Where Sranan Tongo is spoken

Sranan Tongo is spoken in 2 countries: Suriname and the Netherlands. The table gives the share of each country’s people who speak it, from Unicode CLDR, where CLDR has a figure.

CountryShare of populationEstimated speakers
Suriname68%439,795
NetherlandsNot givenNot given

Estimated speakers are the CLDR percentage applied to CLDR’s own population figure for the country, so they are rough. A country without a figure may still have speakers: it is listed because the language area, or Glottolog’s record, reaches it.

Sranan Tongo has no area on the map because no open area map covers it. The ringed point is the position Glottolog gives for the language.

How many people speak Sranan Tongo?

Wikidata gives about 416,000 first-language speakers (Ethnologue, 2016). It also lists about 300,000 second-language speakers (Ethnologue, 2016). These figures are approximate: they come from different sources, years and definitions of a speaker.

Status: Not endangered. Glottolog lists it as not endangered: it is still being passed on to children.

Where Sranan Tongo sits in the language family tree

Glottolog classifies Sranan Tongo as follows, from the largest family down to the language itself.

  1. Indo-European
  2. Classical Indo-European
  3. Germanic
  4. Northwest Germanic
  5. West Germanic
  6. North Sea Germanic
  7. Anglo-Frisian
  8. Anglic
  9. Later Anglic
  10. Middle-Modern English
  11. Macro-English
  12. Guinea Coast Creole English
  13. Surinamese Creole English
  14. Eastern Maroons
  15. Sranan Tongo

More about Sranan Tongo

Codes: ISO 639-3 srn, Glottolog sran1240. Glottolog macroarea: South America.

Questions about Sranan Tongo

Where is Sranan Tongo spoken?

Sranan Tongo is spoken in Suriname and the Netherlands. Unicode CLDR puts it at 68% of the population of Suriname, which is about 439,795 people. On the map it is shown as a single point, because no open area map covers it.

How many people speak Sranan Tongo?

Wikidata gives about 416,000 first-language speakers (Ethnologue, 2016). Speaker numbers are approximate and differ between sources: counting who is a speaker, and whether to include second-language speakers, is not settled. It also lists about 300,000 second-language speakers (Ethnologue, 2016).

Which language family is Sranan Tongo in?

Glottolog places Sranan Tongo in the Indo-European family, in the branch Classical Indo-European, Germanic, Northwest Germanic, West Germanic, North Sea Germanic, Anglo-Frisian, Anglic, Later Anglic, Middle-Modern English, Macro-English, Guinea Coast Creole English, Surinamese Creole English and Eastern Maroons.

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