Oui Pappy-oi! January 31
Patois, or French Creole, is a multicultural gumbo spoken throughout the Caribbean, from Louisiana bayou to Guyana bak-a-waal. Tobago has no Patois, which is strange given it once nominally belonged to France; and yet Trinidad, which never did, has a long association with the dialect.
Cote Ce Cote La, the renowned dictionary of Trinidad and Tobago, defines Patois as a “broken French dialect, especially one that is provincial or illiterate,“ ghetto-speak, and the words that have achieved common usage speak to deprivation and hardship:
Bak-a-waal slum
L’agniappe a little extra thrown in
Mal Yeux evil eye
L’argour cash
L’ecole Biche truancy
La Plika Tomba the rain is falling
Mama Poule gullible
Jab Jab masked jester in satin
Travesaou person of mixed ancestry
Sa Qui Feux what happened to you?
Oui Foute! what madness!
Oui Papa! what madness!
In 1797, when Inglaterra assumed control of the island from España, the population was estimated to be 28,000, of whom 20,000 were French Creole-speaking Africans and Afro-Creole Travesaou. Spain had held the island virtually in absentia for 300 years, but most of the settlers were slaveholders from France and Holland.
The official language of Trinidad government was Spanish until the 19th century, then English thereafter, but the lingua franca of trade and commerce and culture was always Patois, as it was easily shared among European, African, East Indian, Chinese, and Arab. Not until 1850, during implementation of the “Anglicasation Policy,“ did the colonial legislature mandate that “rights and privileges should only be given to those who would take the trouble to learn English and to bring up their children in an English way.“
The policy effectively marginalized Patois. Today it is considered an endangered tongue, as measured by declining fluency among children. Ireland suffered a similar persecution when the British made Gaelic illegal. After WWI, the number of Irish speakers was measured in the hundreds, due to eradication by a colonial force. Following independence, new laws required all schools to teach Gaelic, and native towns were financially rewarded for nurturing the old brogue. Nothing like that will be in store for Patois in Trinidad. We cannot even fix the roads.
The ultimate effect of the Anglicisation Policy was to manage quasi-British pronunciations of French words, keeping them from linguistic extinction. Finding a Patois word you heard in print becomes a fool’s errand—it bears no resemblance to the speech. Spanish names, which are everywhere, succumb to this as well among native speakers, but at least I can translate them when I see the spelling. Whether on the page or in your ear, Patois words can mean just about anything, and they often do.
Patois figures prominently in my inability to comprehend the communication of this place. I may be understood fine, but everyone else is indecipherable. Friends leave me nodding my head incoherently, hoping of glimmer of meaning, and this is partly because they are speaking French, even if they do not realize it.
“Oui Pappy-oi!“ is to be expressed with surprise or shock. “Orale Guey“ is the Mexican equivalent. “Holy Shit“ is the Queen’s English.