Jit Narain

Between 1873 and 1916 about 35.000 East Indians were brought to Suriname as indentured laborers. Along with them, among other things, were their various north Indian dialects which they, within 25 years, forged into a new homegrown Surinamese language, called Sarnámi, now spoken by about 30% of the population as a mother tongue.  Sarnámi is the only Indic language spoken in the Western Hemisphere.