Trinidad's Kwéyòl
Although the official language of Trinidad & Tobago is English, there still exists within the population a small group of people who speak Kwéyòl.
This language has had a profound effect on the speech patterns of all Trinidadians from the moment it emerged on the island to the present time. To most people who do not speak the language, it is known simply as “Patois.” Most people are of the view that Kwéyòl is not a legitimate language and simply a vernacular of the French language. It is also a sad fact that most Trinidadians do not realize that Kwéyòl is an important part of their culture. Trinidad was (re)discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1498 during his third voyage to the "new" world. It was reported that he landed on the southern coast of the island near present-day Moruga. When he landed he saw three hills and named the island “La Trinidad” meaning “The Trinity.” True colonization of the island by the Spanish began by 1507 and it remained a Spanish colony until it was captured for the land-hungry British in 1797 by Sir Ralph Abercrombie. The island was officially ceded to the British in 1802 by the Treaty of Amiens. It was during the Spanish colonial occupation that the Kwéyòl language as spoken in Trinidad was born.
History tells us that even though the Spanish kept the island for three hundred years unchallenged, they, for various reasons, were not able to develop the island along the usual patterns of European colonial occupation, and as such Trinidad remained the most undeveloped colony in the Caribbean. There are many reports by people who visited the island under Spanish rule. Many of these reports tell of native Amerindians "running wild" doing as they pleased, and also of the very poor and almost nonexistent infrastructure. The problem in Trinidad was dire indeed, so much so that by the late 18th century, Trinidad’s population was about two to three thousand, comprising some Spaniards, the remainder of the native population that survived Spanish invasion, and a few Africans who were imported to work on the plantations. Trinidad was a colony ripe for take-over by another European power. The Spanish, realizing this, proclaimed the second “cédula de población” which invited any Catholic subject on good terms with the Spanish crown to settle in Trinidad on the condition that they swore absolute loyalty to the Spanish and obeyed the Spanish laws for governing the colony. The Spanish also gave many incentives to lure settlers to the island, including exemption from taxes for ten years and grants of land to set up plantations. It was reasoned that settlers from the more populous French territories should be given first preference over others because they were Catholic and already had expert knowledge in planting different varieties of sugar cane. Settlers coming from Martinique, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Dominica, Saint Vincent, Guadeloupe, Haiti and Louisiana flooded the island by the thousands bringing the enslaved with them and setting up plantations; soon the wild appearance of Trinidad began to change rapidly, as these French- and Creole-speaking people overran the island; they built roads, buildings, villages and towns. They also acquired positions of prestige in the government and took up an active role in the governance of the colony. Soon their numbers and influence surpassed those of the original Spanish colonists, and in essence “La Trinidad” became “La Trinité,” an unofficial colony of France.
History tells us that even though the Spanish kept the island for three hundred years unchallenged, they, for various reasons, were not able to develop the island along the usual patterns of European colonial occupation, and as such Trinidad remained the most undeveloped colony in the Caribbean. There are many reports by people who visited the island under Spanish rule. Many of these reports tell of native Amerindians "running wild" doing as they pleased, and also of the very poor and almost nonexistent infrastructure. The problem in Trinidad was dire indeed, so much so that by the late 18th century, Trinidad’s population was about two to three thousand, comprising some Spaniards, the remainder of the native population that survived Spanish invasion, and a few Africans who were imported to work on the plantations. Trinidad was a colony ripe for take-over by another European power. The Spanish, realizing this, proclaimed the second “cédula de población” which invited any Catholic subject on good terms with the Spanish crown to settle in Trinidad on the condition that they swore absolute loyalty to the Spanish and obeyed the Spanish laws for governing the colony. The Spanish also gave many incentives to lure settlers to the island, including exemption from taxes for ten years and grants of land to set up plantations. It was reasoned that settlers from the more populous French territories should be given first preference over others because they were Catholic and already had expert knowledge in planting different varieties of sugar cane. Settlers coming from Martinique, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Dominica, Saint Vincent, Guadeloupe, Haiti and Louisiana flooded the island by the thousands bringing the enslaved with them and setting up plantations; soon the wild appearance of Trinidad began to change rapidly, as these French- and Creole-speaking people overran the island; they built roads, buildings, villages and towns. They also acquired positions of prestige in the government and took up an active role in the governance of the colony. Soon their numbers and influence surpassed those of the original Spanish colonists, and in essence “La Trinidad” became “La Trinité,” an unofficial colony of France.
The population of Trinidad was further increased by the importation of thousands of enslaved Africans coming directly from Africa to work on the new plantations since the slaves brought over from the French islands were soon found to be inadequate. As soon as they arrived in Trinidad, the slaves were culturally suppressed for fear of revolt. These enslaved people interacted with the creolized slaves that they met on the island. The slaves born in the Caribbean spoke Kwéyòl which was the spoken language of the plantation societies in the French Antilles. The Creole language was learned by the new slaves in order to communicate with their masters as well as the other slaves. They combined Creole with their own languages and a new variant of Creole was beginning to emerge. This new variant of the Creole was also heavily influenced by Spanish which is also spoken in Trinidad and the language contains lexical items from Carib and other Amerindian languages. All of these linguistic influences helped to make the language unique and native to this particular island. When the British took the island in 1797, they encountered a complex culture that existed nowhere else in the Caribbean. The island was a Spanish colony with a French, Creole and Spanish-speaking population. Creole became the common language of the different communities of people who all spoke different languages. From 1797 until 1962 the British ruled Trinidad with an iron fist. They tried their best to stamp out the overwhelming Franco-Creole-Hispanic influence but were largely unsuccessful until the early part of the 20th century, when the use of Creole, Spanish and French began to decline.
The British attacked the Creole culture by passing laws against anything that did not conform to their definition of culture. In the late 1800s, they banned drumming, claiming that it incited violence. Soon Creole was superseded by English and today there remain very few places where Creole is heard regularly. One of these villages in Paramin which also has a strong tradition of singing in Spanish, another is Blanchiseusse. Kwéyòl is spoken elsewhere, but the number of Kwéyòl speakers in these areas is very small. In terms of comprehension of Trinidad’s Creole with that of the other islands, Trinidad’s Creole is most closely aligned with the Creole of Saint Lucia, Dominica and Martinique since slaves and French Creoles (whites) from those islands were in the majority during the formative years of Trinidad’s Creole. Speakers of Trinidad’s Creole are also able to communicate with Creolophones from Guadeloupe, Marie Glante, and Saint Martin and to some extent Haiti. Creole is the language spoken in these territories and it unites us all.
Kwéyòl (called Patois in Trinidad) is not a dialect of French and modern monolingual Francophones cannot understand the language. Kwéyòl is a language with its own grammar, syntax and orthography which makes it distinct from French or any other language it may resemble. The notion that Kwéyòl is an inferior language is a colonial inference and is not based on linguistic fact. Concerning vocabulary, 90% of the words come from French while the remaining words come from Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, Akan, Spanish, Carib, Hindi, Bhojpuri, Portuguese, Chinese, English and Arabic. Hindi, Bhojpuri and Arabic words entered the language when Hindu and Muslim indentured laborers came to the island from India in the 1840s. The impact of Hindi, Chinese and Arabic on the language is very small because by the time these laborers arrived on the island the Kwéyòl language had for the most part evolved into its present from and had less need to borrow lexical items from other languages.
The influences of these new languages and cultures are reflected most strongly in the vocabulary used to describe the food and other aspects of the new cultures that these people brought to the island especially if descriptive words did not exist previously. The language was also learned by these and other new immigrants (including Chinese, Portuguese and Syrians) for the purpose of communication. English words entered the language after Trinidad was made a colony of England. They are used to describe modern world and modern inventions of the twentieth century and beyond. Despite the increasing importance of words derived from English, most Creole speakers will agree that the use of English words is avoided whenever possible.
