Although Surinamis have spoken Dutch for a couple of hundred years, it was only in the last year that Dutch became the official state language and Suriname joined the Dutch Language Union (Nederlandse Taalunie). The Dutch people speak here is beautiful. In many ways it is slightly old-fashioned for us European Dutch speakers, as Flemish tends to sound to us. Nevertheless, Dutch is a living language here that constantly develops new words and expressions. Today I heard a new verb on the radio news. The item was about the first day of school and how young children deal with school. It concerned toddlers ('peuters' in Dutch). In Surinami Dutch when toddlers go to school they toddle ('peuteren' in Dutch). Whereas we tend to say: "toddlers go to school", the Surinamis say "the kids toddle".
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