SUNDAY 5 MAY 2019 – UWI TODAY
15
Nineteenth-century Trinidadian teacher,
linguist,
writer and public intellectual, John JacobThomas, was
famous for
Froudacity
(1889), his published rebuttal
to a colonial racist rant.
But two decades prior, Thomas was a pioneer in
Patois (French Creole). Not a native speaker of Patois,
Thomas was exposed to it at a time when the majority
in Trinidad were speakers of the language. He began
his analysis and research into Patois in 1866 (when it
was not even recognised as a “language”), culminating
in his groundbreaking
The Theory and Practice of
Creole Grammar
. The grammar was published in
1869 in Port of Spain (Chronicle Publishing Office),
150 years ago.
Not only is this the first grammar of any French
Creole variety anywhere in the world, but in modern
contemporary terms, this single volume fits into Creole
linguistics, historical linguistics, morphology and
syntax, translation studies (including Bible translation),
folklore studies, and language documentation.Thomas
continued writing, producing an essay comparing
French Creole with English Creole, and discussing
the influence of African languages on Creoles. He
had plans to produce an even more in-depth and
comparative grammar before he died at just 48 years
old in 1889.
Thomas, a ward school teacher, noted in his
introduction the discrimination particularly faced
by monolingual Patois speakers in the legal and
educational systems, problems that still confront
predominantly Patois speakers in the Caribbean today:
“In the administration of Justice in this Colony,
the interpreting of Creole occurs as a daily necessity.
Yet it is notorious that, in spite of constant practice,
our best interpreters, though generally persons of
good education, commonly fail in their renderings,
especially from Creole into English.”
Thomas wrote that this was no doubt partly due
to the inherent difficulty of interpreting consecutively
and accurately. He noted that interpreting was also
very difficult “because our interpreters, like everybody
else, neglect to study” the structure and usage of the
Creole language. The lack of study was partly due
to “the prevalence of opinion that Creole is only
mispronounced French, and partly by the want of some
such manual as the present.”
Thomas’ grammar recognised the inherent
linguistic equality of the language, vis-à-vis any other
language, while confronting the social inequality
besetting the speakers of Patois. In 1870, an American
contemporary, Addison van Name, described the
Sarah White. La Rose, a visionary and activist not to
be forgotten, is the subject of the 2003 documentary:
Dream to Change theWorld:The Life and Legacy of John
La Rose
, directed by Horace Ové. Writing as Anthony
La Rose, he penned the poem
Song to an Imperishable
Sunlight
(
Foundations
, 1966), paying tribute toThomas
and his genius:
Our Jacob was not coatless;
our Jacob Thomas wrote a grammar in
patois to remove the scales from justice’s eyes
for peasants who spoke no word of Englis
in milord’s court.
And Jacob answered proud England’s Froude
for his ‘froudacity’ in challenging our right
to revolt to rule our land.
Still each generation lives its present,
in huge hiatus, unaware.
Creole Linguistics has advanced considerably
in the last 150 years, including a standardised
orthography for Lesser Antillean French Creole
pioneered by Lawrence D Carrington (UWI), and
Jean Bernabé of the Université des Antilles. This new
orthographymoved away fromThomas’ “etymological
spelling and reliance on French grammar”, and the
many other individualised and inconsistent spelling
systems used up to the 1970s.The one system increases
the potential to share literature (including traditional
oratures now being put in writing).
In spite of advances in Creole Linguistics and in
spite of increasing recognition of the language’s validity,
Trinidadian Patois (and also the related Grenadian
and Venezuelan varieties of French Creole) is facing
extinction. As a heritage language, Trinidadian Patois
is recognised as particularly contributing to the
language of flora, fauna, folklore, and festivals. Efforts
are afoot to document remaining fluent and less fluent
speakers of all three varieties, for the present and future
generations, “in huge hiatus, unaware”.
The main avenues to access information about
Trinidadian Patois are provided on UWI Space, the
UWI-T&T Research and Development Impact (RDI)
Fund website for Trinidad and Tobago Endangered
Languages (TTEL): Digital Documentation of National
Heritage Languages, and via Facebook (Trinidadian
Patois Speakers) and YouTube playlists.
Our Jacob’s work continues, and remains a solid
foundation on which we build and build awareness.
Thomas, a ward
school teacher, noted
in his introduction
the discrimination
particularly faced by
monolingual Patois
speakers in the legal and
educational systems,
problems that still
confront predominantly
Patois speakers in the
Caribbean today.
HISTORY
Jo-Anne S. Ferreira is the Head, Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics, Director of the Caribbean Interpreting and Translation Bureau, and President of the Society for Caribbean Linguistics
JOHN JACOB THOMAS
Pioneer in Patois
B Y J O - A N N E S F E R R E I R A
text as “the most extended and valuable work on
the grammar of the language”, and it remains the
foundation for all studies of Trinidadian French
Creole, and indeed all Lesser Antillean varieties. An
1872 review describes it as “the first detailed grammar
of a French Creole dialect. Useful, thorough, and
detailed, but suffers from etymological spelling and
reliance on French grammar to describe Creole.”
In 1969, New Beacon Books in London published
the 100th Anniversary edition of Thomas’ grammar,
with an introduction, biographical sketch and
appreciation of Thomas by Gertrud Aub-Buscher,
now compiling a Trinidadian Patois dictionary. New
Beacon was founded by Trinidadian John La Rose and
