The LOT Popularisation Prize

The LOT Popularisation Prize is awarded to a project that makes linguistic expertise accessible to a broad audience. In odd years, the prize of €2500 is meant to allow the realization of a proposed project; in even years it rewards an already realized project. This year, Margot van den Berg, Jeroen van Ravenhorst and Fresco Sam-Sin were the winners with their project ‘A ship full of words: Traces of Africa in Sranantongo’. In this project, texts will be produced for an online dictionary, and five mini-podcasts and an animated video will be created. In addition, the team are working towards an exhibition about the languages of Suriname, in which this project will feature prominently. With the proposed activities, the winners want to make visible the historical relations that Afro-Surinamese people have with Africa, taking as a starting point the histories of individual words. The jury, consisting of Mathilde Jansen, Yiya Chen, and Sharon Unsworth, judged the project particularly original and of current relevance. They also praised the way the project contributes to wider knowledge of the value of linguistic research.