When the Trinidad Guardian commenced publication in 1917, there were occasions when the advertisements reflected the very diverse nature of society. Notices for meetings of the several Chinese associations were printed in the appropriate calligraphy for instance, but perhaps the ones which most completely represented the potpourri of Trinidad were the New Year’s Day greetings which were trilingual and delivered the missive in Spanish, English and French.
This was not unusual since in the first place, French Patois was the first language of the majority of the population. In 1887 James Henry Collens wrote: “Patois—a compound of bad French and English, with a flavour of Spanish—is spoken not only in Trinidad, but even in Grenada and St Lucia. Some years ago, Mr J Thomas, a native, with considerable ability, wrote and published his ‘Creole Grammar,’ in which he elevates the patois to the dignity of a language. Certainly, this lingua is an expressive one. It is sparkling with humour, masterly for sarcasm and ridicule, magnificent for abuse, but I am afraid it is wanting in elegance of diction. Some of the Creole proverbs are very witty and pregnant with meaning. Thus, quoting from Mr Thomas’ book: ‘Yon doegt pas sa pouend pices.’ (A single finger cannot catch fleas.) ‘Deier chien, ce “chien,” douvant chien, ce “missier chien.” (Behind dog’s back, it is ‘dog,’ but before dog, it is ‘Mister dog.’)
“The French, Spanish and Portuguese classes usually speak their own tongue in their home circles, but nearly all understand English and converse tolerably fluently in it. In this respect, the French particularly beat us hollow, and as I have a pretty strong conviction that a Frenchman’s English is infinitely better than an Englishman’s French, I wisely refrain from airing my little Gallic knowledge.”
The death of patois as a first language came a generation later as the older folks used it as a secret code to exclude their children from conversation. Spanish was the first European tongue used in the island when it was a colony of Spain from 1498-1797. This, however, did not account for the use of it in newspaper advertisements since by 1900, barely a memory of this period remained. Trinidad was home to thousands of Venezuelans, either Cocoa Panyols who had come to work on the cocoa plantations or else more genteel exiles fleeing persecution from the dictatorial governments. Port-of-Spain was fed by provisions from Venezuela and there was a regular steamship service to the Orinoco River. Commerce in the city included a number of merchants who traded with Caracas, and Bolivares circulated as legal tender. Large stores like the Bonanza and Salvatori’s did considerable business with Venezuelan clients on a regular basis in addition to acting as export agents for leather and other produce, thus it was considerate of them to wish their customers “Un Ano Nuevo Prospero.”
English, oddly enough, was only a second language of sorts before 1920 despite 123 years of British rule up to that point. Even as late as 1869 when Irishman Patrick Keenan submitted his comprehensive report on the public and denominational schools of the island, he was able to write. “In point of fact, the place is quite a Babel. The operation of the Ward schools has, no doubt, extended the use of English to districts where English had been previously unknown. But this diffusion of the English language has been accomplished by the most irrational process that could possibly be conceived. French and Spanish speaking children have been set to learn English alphabets, English spelling, and English reading, without the slightest reference whatever in the explanation of a word or the translation of a phrase, to the only language, French or Spanish, which they could speak or understand. The desire of every lover of the colony must be to see that all the inhabitants speak English.”
Indeed, it was useful for shop clerks and proprietors to have a good grasp of at least some of the diverse languages spoken in the colony if they were to have any trade at all. Yldefonso De Lima, the Sephardic Jewish immigrant from Venezuela who founded the famous jewelry store, Y De Lima and Co. in 1888 was something of a prodigy being fluent in Spanish, English and French, with a smattering of Dutch Papiamento and even some Bhojpuri for dealing with Indian clients.
Today, the wonderfully musical sound of languages has been silenced except in the pidgin Spanish of parang and pockets of patois in the hills.