Lokono
[aka Arawak, Arawák, Aruak]Classification: Arawakan
·severely endangered
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Severely endangered
100 percent certain, based on the evidence available
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<2,000
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A sizeable community
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"Both the number of ethnic Lokono (i.e., the total ethnic population), and the percentage of Lokono speakers in the three Guianas are hard to estimate... Based on long-term fieldwork and collaboration with Lokono organizations from the three Guianas since 2009, I conclude that the figures today are much lower [than the previously estimated speaker count of ~2,000]. The percentage of fluent speakers, that is, speakers who have an active knowledge of many linguistic domains, is around 5% of the ethnic population. There is a sizeable community of semispeakers possessing different degrees of passive knowledge, but very few people can actually speak Lokono."
- DATE OF INFO
- 2009
- DOMAINS OF USE
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- SPEAKER NUMBER TRENDS
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- TRANSMISSION
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- MORE ON VITALITY
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"The Lokono language is not being transmitted to children anymore. Lokono children are raised speaking the official languages and the lingua francas. The break in transmission took place, more or less, two generations
ago... The oldest generations of Lokono (70+) are fluent Lokono speakers, that is, they have
active and passive knowledge of many domains.. Lokono language skills are decreasing with age. People between 50 and 70 are usually ‘advanced’ speakers of all three languages, but use Lokono sporadically... The generation of 30- to 50-year-olds has, at best, ‘intermediate’ (usually passive) knowledge of Lokono... The youngest generation has neither active nor passive knowledge of the Lokono language. The domains, in which Lokono is used today, are very limited, while the official languages dominate most of the formal, and the lingua francas
most of the informal, contexts." - SPEAKER ATTITUDE
- "In the settlements themselves in all three countries, there is support for language revitalization, especially among the adult ethnic Lokono who do not speak the language anymore (including the expatriates in the Netherlands). However, not many Lokono actively participate in the attempts at revitalizing the language. The Lokono are not ashamed anymore of speaking their language publicly, although this hardly ever happens due to the limited number of fluent speakers."
- GOVERNMENT SUPPORT
- Limited
- LANGUAGE CONTEXT COMMENTS
"Amerindian languages in Suriname do not have an official status. Lokono, together with other Amerindian
languages, is recognized as a regional language in Guyana. In French Guiana, Lokono, together with other Amerindian and Maroon languages, at least theoretically, has the status of a regional language of France. Despite clear differences between the three countries, in none of them is there an actual implemented language policy aimed at sustaining and developing the Lokono language."- Scripts (Writing system)
- Roman-based
- Competing Orthographies
- Other Roman-based
- More on Orthography
"The existing grammatical descriptions leave much to be desired and the existing literacy materials in Lokono have reached very few speakers. Only in 2010 have steps been taken by the community to standardize and popularize the Lokono writing system in the three Guianas."
- PLACES
- French Guiana, Suriname, Guyana
- LOCATION DESCRIPTION
"Geographically, the Lokono people live in the pericoastal villages (indicated in red [on map in article]) as well as in the three capital cities of the Guianas: Cayenne, Paramaribo and Georgetown. According to an unpublished report by the Summer Institute of Linguistics (2002), there is also a small Lokono community in Venezuela, not far from the Guyanese border. Finally, there is also a sizable community of Lokono people living in the Netherlands who emigrated from Suriname in the last few decades for economic, educational, and political reasons. Patte (2014) also mentions an expatriate Lokono community in Great Britain."