Joel Julien

The first na­tion­al lan­guage of T&T was Pa­tois. This is a fact that not many peo­ple in T&T know now but one that Pa­tois re­searcher, doc­u­men­tal­ist and teacher, Nnam­di Hodge hopes they will even­tu­al­ly learn and ac­cept. “Many peo­ple be­lieve our first lan­guage here was Span­ish. We tend to fo­cus on­ly on our Span­ish her­itage when in fact our first na­tion­al lan­guage was ac­tu­al­ly the Pa­tois. The books show that we were ini­tial­ly a Span­ish coun­try first and then Eng­lish, while com­plete­ly ig­nor­ing the whole French and French Cre­ole part of cul­ture,” Hodge said.

But how did Pa­tois be­come spo­ken here? While the coun­try was un­der the Span­ish rule, it re­mained un­de­vel­oped un­til the late 18th cen­tu­ry. To solve this prob­lem, the King of Spain pub­lished the Cedu­la of Pop­u­la­tion in 1783, edict open­ing the coun­try to im­mi­gra­tion from. Most of the set­tlers were French, and French in­flu­ence be­came dom­i­nant. Pa­tois be­gan be­ing spo­ken here and in the mid-19th cen­tu­ry, Pa­tois be­came the lin­gua fran­ca.

Pa­tois was the first lan­guage of proverbs, ca­lyp­so, folk tales, and rid­dles. And that is one thing Hodge wants peo­ple to know.

Pa­tois was a lan­guage, it a mis­con­cep­tion peo­ple tend to have he said. “Some peo­ple think it is bro­ken French. That it is not a lan­guage. That it is just a bro­ken in­fe­ri­or form of French,” Hodge said. These and many oth­er mis­con­cep­tions Hodge said he hopes to see cor­rect­ed.

Nnamdi Hodge, Patois researcher, documentalist and teacher.

And he is hop­ing that Oc­to­ber 28, In­ter­na­tion­al Cre­ole Day, will be a start­ing point for that con­ver­sa­tion. “World Cre­ole Day for me it means our cre­ole cul­ture here ac­tu­al­ly fi­nal­ly be­ing ac­cept­ed. It is a chance for us to show­case our Pa­tois lan­guage and cul­ture here,” he said. “Our beau­ti­ful cul­ture that has been here for 100s of years but not be­ing known out­side of T&T.”

To help ce­ment the lega­cy of Pa­tois and keep it alive, Hodge hopes it will be added to the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem.

“It can be for­malised by hav­ing it as part of the cur­ricu­lum in school, ei­ther as a sub­ject by it­self or part of the so­cial stud­ies cur­ricu­lum,” he said.

“On­ly when it is in school will peo­ple take it se­ri­ous­ly.” Hodge said Pa­tois is still be­ing spo­ken in­for­mal­ly but when it is for­malised in school he be­lieves peo­ple will take it more se­ri­ous­ly and it will get a wider reach and wider ac­cep­tance. Apart from Paramin, Hodge has heard Pa­tois speak­ers in ar­eas such as Tabaquite and Lopinot. As small as Trinidad is there are some Pa­tois vari­a­tions, and Paramin is not the on­ly com­mu­ni­ty that has Pa­tois roots.

The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has af­fect­ed the thrust to push Pa­tois in two ways. Over the week­end the an­nu­al Tout Bagay Pa­tois’ an­nu­al con­cert Sé Yon Bagay Pa­tois! (It’s a Pa­tois Thing!) was held on­line. With it be­ing held on­line Hodge said more eyes were on the even that they would usu­al­ly have got­ten.

“Peo­ple would not go phys­i­cal­ly but now that we have it on­line and reach­ing the T&T di­as­po­ra and the gen­er­al French Cre­ole di­as­po­ra Mau­ri­tius Louisiana, French Caribbean Cana­da,” he said. How­ev­er, the pan­dem­ic and its fa­tal ef­fects on the el­der­ly pop­u­la­tion has af­fect­ed Hodge and oth­er re­searchers be­ing able to speak to in­for­mants to re­search and doc­u­ment the lan­guage. Most of the na­tive speak­ers are old­er that 70 years. Hodge hopes T&T will one day cel­e­brate Pa­tois and Cre­ole cul­ture on a na­tion­al scale be­cause of the im­pact it had here. “Our orig­i­nal cul­ture and lan­guage was pa­tois so we should be cel­e­brat­ing here on a na­tion­al lev­el,” he said.

In an at­tempt to help teach Pa­tois and make it more vis­i­ble, they have al­so utilised the ser­vices of so­cial me­dia in­flu­encer Stephon Felmine, the “Tri­ni Al­pha­bet Guy.” Felmine has start­ed by teach­ing the word afòs which is an ex­pres­sion to show in­ten­si­ty.

Ear­li­er this year, Pa­tois teacher Michelle Mo­ra-Foder­ing­ham con­tact­ed him and pro­posed the idea of a pa­tois (French Cre­ole) video se­ries.

Stephon Felmine, the Trini Alphabet Guy, teaches Patois words and phrases.

One of the high­lights of this year’s cel­e­bra­tion is the plan to pay trib­ute to the late Carl­ton “Pa­pa George” Matthews a pop­u­lar folk-song write from Morne Di­a­blo. Hodge has been work­ing with Dr Jo-Anne Fer­reira of the UWI for over a decade on pre­serv­ing Pa­tois through record­ings, doc­u­men­ta­tion and pub­li­ca­tions. They have al­so done a ton of ex­changes with oth­er Kwéyòl speak­ing com­mu­ni­ties such as Gul­ria and Macuro in East­ern Venezuela.

Pa­tois speak­er and cul­tur­al en­thu­si­ast Mo­ra-Foder­ing­ham is from Gua­napo and has been in­stru­men­tal in teach­ing young peo­ple Pa­tois in Tal­paro, and ini­ti­at­ed a Pa­tois mass at Tal­paro RC for some years now.

This is sim­i­lar to what Paramin does on Car­ni­val Sun­day. Pa­tois in T&T lives on, but is strug­gling to sur­vive. On Face­book the Trinida­di­an Pa­tois Speak­ers has more than 21,000 fol­low­ers to date.

“Pre­servin Pa­tois (French-lex­i­con Cre­ole) is about lan­guage and life. We don’t just want our Pa­tois re­vival move­ment to lead to de­vel­op­ing a cul­tur­al or lin­guis­tic mu­se­um (which is a good thing for the past and fu­ture), but to re­vive its life to­day, make it liv­ing and alive in the 21st cen­tu­ry. Nos­tal­gia is not enough—we must be proac­tive,” it states.

“In­ter­est in Pa­tois can even help re­vive in­ter­est in French, Pa­tois be­ing so much eas­i­er and faster to learn for Trin­bag­o­ni­ans. French is be­ing un­for­tu­nate­ly kicked out of our sec­ondary school sys­tem, not just here, but over­seas.

“The na­tion­al fo­cus on Span­ish does not and should not ex­clude oth­er lan­guages, be­cause bilin­gual­ism is the be­gin­ning of mul­ti­lin­gual­ism. And, in­ter­na­tion­al­ly speak­ing, that is far more nor­mal than mono­lin­gual­ism—and is bet­ter so­cial­ly and lin­guis­ti­cal­ly. Once an in­di­vid­ual learns more than one lan­guage, the third and fourth and fifth (etc) come more eas­i­ly. Tan-an wivé pou mété lan­gaj-nou doubout ankò! Pat­wa ka viv tou­jou! The time has come to put our lan­guage back on its feet! Pa­tois is still alive!”