Appendix:Sranan Swadesh list

This is an Swadesh list of words in English and Sranan.

Presentation [edit]

At the end of the 1940s, new insights of radiocarbon dating became known to the public. Linguist Morris Swadesh believed that words decayed with age in a roughly similar way and therefore applied similar methods to determine the relationship of languages. To be able to compare languages from different cultures, he based his lists on meanings he presumed would be available in as many cultures as possible. He then used the fraction of agreeing cognates between any two related languages to compute their divergence time by some (still debated) algorithms. Starting in 1950 with 165 meanings, his list grew to 215 in 1952, which was so expansive that many languages lacked native vocabulary for some terms. Subsequently, it was reduced to 207, and reduced much further to 100 meanings in 1955. A reformulated list was published posthumously in 1971.

For further information, including the full final version, read the Wikipedia article: Swadesh list.

List [edit]

No.	English	Sranan sranan tongo
1	I	mi
2	you (singular)	yu, i
3	he	a, en
4	we	wi, unu, un
5	you (plural)	unu, un
6	they	den
7	this	disi
8	that	dati
9	here	dya
10	there	drape
11	who	suma
12	what	san, fa
13	where	pe
14	when	oten
15	how	o, fa
16	not	no
17	all	ala
18	many	furu
19	some	son, wantu
20	few	wanwan
21	other	tra
22	one	wan
23	two	tu
24	three	dri
25	four	fo
26	five	feifi
27	big	bigi
28	long	langa
29	wide	bradi
30	thick	deki
31	heavy	hebi
32	small	pikin
33	short	syatu
34	narrow	smara
35	thin	fini, mangri
36	woman	uma
37	man (adult male)	man
38	man (human being)	sma, libisma
39	child	pikin, pikinnengre
40	wife	frow
41	husband	masra
42	mother	mama
43	father	papa
44	animal	meti
45	fish	fisi
46	bird	fowru
47	dog	dagu
48	louse	loso
49	snake	sneki
50	worm	woron
51	tree	bon
52	forest	busi
53	stick	tiki
54	fruit	froktu
55	seed	siri, koko
56	leaf	wiwiri
57	root	rutu
58	bark (of a tree)	basi, buba
59	flower	bromki
60	grass	grasi
61	rope	titei
62	skin	buba, skin
63	meat	meti
64	blood	brudu
65	bone	bonyo
66	fat (noun)	fatu
67	egg	eksi
68	horn	tutu
69	tail	tere
70	feather	fowruwiwiri
71	hair	wiwiri
72	head	ede
73	ear	yesa
74	eye	ai
75	nose	noso
76	mouth	mofo
77	tooth	tifi
78	tongue (organ)	tongo
79	fingernail	nangra
80	foot	futu
81	leg	futu
82	knee	kindi
83	hand	anu
84	wing	frei
85	belly	bere
86	guts	bere
87	neck	neki
88	back	baka
89	breast	bobi
90	heart	ati
91	liver	lefre
92	to drink	dringi
93	to eat	nyan
94	to bite	beti
95	to suck	soigi
96	to spit	spiti
97	to vomit	fomeri
98	to blow	wai, bro
99	to breathe	bro
100	to laugh	lafu
101	to see	si
102	to hear	yere
103	to know	sabi
104	to think	denki, prakseri
105	to smell	smeri
106	to fear	frede
107	to sleep	sribi
108	to live	libi
109	to die	dede
110	to kill	kiri
111	to fight	feti, strei
112	to hunt	onti
113	to hit	iti
114	to cut	koti
115	to split	priti
116	to stab	dyuku
117	to scratch	krabu, krasi
118	to dig	diki
119	to swim	swen
120	to fly	frei
121	to walk	waka
122	to come	kon
123	to lie (as in a bed)	didon
124	to sit	sidon
125	to stand	tnapu, knapu, snapu
126	to turn (intransitive)	drai
127	to fall	fadon
128	to give	gi
129	to hold	ori
130	to squeeze	kwinsi
131	to rub	lobi, wrifi
132	to wash	wasi, spuru
133	to wipe	wrifi
134	to pull	hari
135	to push	pusu
136	to throw	bonk, iti
137	to tie	tai
138	to sew	nai
139	to count	teri
140	to say	taki
141	to sing	singi
142	to play	prei
143	to float	dribi
144	to flow	lon
145	to freeze
146	to swell	sweri
147	sun	son
148	moon	mun
149	star	stari
150	water	watra
151	rain	alen
152	river	liba
153	lake
154	sea	se
155	salt	sowtu
156	stone	ston
157	sand	santi
158	dust
159	earth	gron
160	cloud	wolku
161	fog
162	sky	loktu
163	wind	winti
164	snow
165	ice
166	smoke	smoko
167	fire	faya
168	ash	asisi
169	to burn	bron
170	road	pasi
171	mountain	bergi
172	red	redi
173	green	grun
174	yellow	geri
175	white	weti
176	black	blaka
177	night	neti
178	day	dei
179	year	yari
180	warm	waran
181	cold	kowru
182	full	furu
183	new	nyun
184	old	owru
185	good	bun
186	bad	ogri
187	rotten	pori
188	dirty	doti
189	straight	leti
190	round	lontu
191	sharp (as a knife)	srapu
192	dull (as a knife)	dede
193	smooth	grati
194	wet	nati
195	dry	drei
196	correct	yoisti
197	near	na
198	far	fara
199	right	leti-anu
200	left	kruktu-anu
201	at	na
202	in	ini
203	with	nanga
204	and	èn, nanga
205	if	efu
206	because	bika
207	name	nen

External links [edit]

Multilanguage dictionary
Sranan-English dictionary (SIL) (PDF version)
Sranan-English dictionary (SIL) (HTML version)
English-Sranan / Sranan-English mini-dictionary]

Swadesh lists
Individual languages
Afrikaans – Albanian – Antillean Creole – Arabic (standard) (p), Egyptian Arabic (p), Palestinian Arabic (p), Tunisian Arabic (t) – Armenian (t,p) – Aromanian – Bangala – Bashkir – Basque – Belarusian – Breton – Bulgarian (t) – Burmese (t,p) – Catalan – Chechen – Chinese: Cantonese, Gan (p), Mandarin (t,p), Min Nan (Amoy) (p), Old Chinese (p) – Croatian – Czech – Danish – Dutch (p) – Egyptian (Middle) – Esperanto – Estonian – Finnish – Fiji Hindi – Fijian – French (p) – Frisian (West) – Friulian – Georgian (t,p) – German (p) – Greek (modern) (p), Greek (ancient) – Guaraní – Haida – Haitian Creole – Hausa – Hawaiian – Hindi (t) – Hittite – Hmong (White) (p) – Hungarian – Icelandic – Indonesian – Irish (p) – Istro-Romanian – Italian (p) – Japanese (t) – Kashubian – Khmer (p) – Korean (t) – Kurdish – Latin – Latvian – Lingala – Lingua Franca Nova – Lithuanian – Luwian – Macedonian (t) – Malagasy – Malay – Maltese – Megleno-Romanian – Mongolian (t) – Old Portuguese (p) – Ossetian (p) – Polish (p) – Portuguese (p) – Proto-Indo-European – Purepecha – Quechua – Romani – Romanian – Russian (p) – Sanskrit (t) – Scottish Gaelic – Serbo-Croatian – Sinhalese – Slovenian – Spanish (p) – Sranan – Swahili – Swedish – Tagalog – Tajik (t) – Tahitian – Thai (t) – Tocharian B – Tok Pisin – Turkish – Ukrainian – Vietnamese – Walloon – Zulu
Language families and family branches
Afro-Asiatic – Algonquian – Altaic – Araucanian – Austro-Asiatic – Australian – Austronesian – Baltic-Finnic – Bantu – Celtic – Dené–Yeniseian – Dravidian – Finno-Ugric – Frisian – Germanic – Hokan – Iberian – Italian – Indo-Iranian – Indo-Iranian (extended) – Mayan – Muskogean – Niger–Congo – Oto-Manguean – Paleosiberian – Penutian – Romance – Sino-Tibetan – Slavic – Siouan – Tai–Kadai – Tibeto-Burman – Tupi–Guarani – Turkic – Uto-Aztecan
The list may also include: (t) the transcription in Latin characters; (p) the phonetic transcription