Trinidadian English Information
Trinidadian English (TE) or Trinidad and Tobago Standard English is a dialect of English used in Trinidad and Tobago. TE co-exists with both non-standard varieties of English as well as other dialects, namely Trinidadian Creole in Trinidad and Tobagonian Creole in Tobago. Most speakers use Trinidadian or Tobagonian Creole in informal discourse but, in formal settings, utilize, to varying degrees, standard English.
As for all other varieties of standard English, Trinidadian English was originally based on a standard of British English. Located in the Americas, TE now uses many Americanisms from its larger and more dominant northern neighbour, including apartment, trunk (of a car) and truck, although flat is also used, and bonnet continues to be more commonly used than hood (of a car) (but lorry is not used). In addition, many words from the vernacular have found their way into standard English, including such words as to lime (to 'hang out' or 'to party'), fête (French) meaning 'to party', lagniappe - pronounced "lan-yap"[1] (of Spanish origin from la ñapa) meaning 'a little something extra', and dougla (of Hindi origin), now meaning 'a person of both African and Indian parentage'[2] (all adstrate languages).
Although Trinidadian English is mutually intelligible with other varieties of international standard English, speech in Trinidad (and, to some degree, in Tobago) may vary by location and circumstance. The language is highly flexible and absorbs vocabulary from British, America, Jamaican and other kinds of English.
Trinidadian English is often remarked on by tourists and foreigners for its so-called "sing-song" (i.e. a monotonously rising and falling inflection) intonation. As with a number of other Caribbean accents, e.g. Jamaican, educated individuals often add a pronounced schwa to words ending in a consonant - this may be caused by hypercorrection.
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Footnotes
References
See also
External links
- Miguel Browne's Trini Talk
- A Trinidadian accent
- Discussion of a paper by Lise Winer
- An Ethnolinguistic Study of the Trinidadian Creole community in Flatbush, Brooklyn by Keisha T. Lindsay and Justine Bolusi
- 50 Frequenty Asked Questions on Caribbean Language by the Society for Caribbean Linguistics
- Wiwords A cross-referencing dictionary of West Indian words with a large number of Trinidadian terms
- The Sociolinguistic Situation of Trinidad and Tobago. 1997.
- Phonological Hypercorrection in the Process of Decreolization--the Case of Trinidadian English.
References
- James, Winford, 2001, Trinidad and Tobago Standard English?.
- James, Winford, 2003, Doing our own thing with English I.
- James, Winford, 2003, Doing our own thing with English II.
- James, Winford, 2004, What kind of question is this?.
- James, Winford, 2004, What kind of question is this? Pt2.
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