Trinidadian French-Creole

Alphabet

The Creole alphabet is very similar to the English and French alphabet. However, there are some differences. The first is the absence of the letters “C”, “Q”, “U” and “X”, and another difference is the inclusion of a few extra letters. The alphabet is as follows:^[10][11]

Nouns and articles

In Trinidadian French Creole the word 'yon/on' is added to the front of a noun as an indefinite article (so 'a' or 'an'). For example, 'yon kanot' means 'a boat' or 'on-chuval' means 'a horse'. There is no significant difference between 'yonn' or 'onn', although yonn is used more often.^[12]: 14

The word for the definite article ('the') is added on the end of a word (as a suffix) instead of at the front like with 'Yonn'. So in Trinidadian, to say 'the boat' would result in 'kanot-a'. If the word ends in a vowel then '-la' is added instead of '-a' so instead of 'misyé-a' the correct form would be 'misyé-la' ('the gentleman').^[12]: 15 There are also other forms of the definite article such as “-an” and “-lan” but they are not used as often.

The possessive is also added as a suffix, for example the phrase 'my house' would be 'lakay-mwen'. Adjectives usually come after the word they describe 'fanm-a bon' (the good woman), although sometimes Creole takes the English sentence structure and so the adjective can come before the word it describes, hence byen fanm-a could also be acceptable. ^[12]: 37

Negatives

To make something negative then 'pa' — similar to the French pas — is placed before the verb. Sometimes the form 'si [verb] pa' is used. Examples are below:^{[12]: 61,77 [10]}
Mwen pa pale [or] mwen si pale pa

Verbs

Most verbs end in “é” such as “chanté” and “manjé”, so they are similar to French, and there are also irregular verbs which end in other letters such as “vini” (to come) or “bizwen” (to need). The verbs do not change regardless of number or when the action takes place.^[10]

Gender

French Creole does not have grammatical gender, but it has lexical gender. Some words of French origin can be gendered such as Moulat and Moulatwess (Mulatto male and Mulatto female). However, verbs, nouns and adjectives never change due to the gender of the speaker or person being mentioned.^[10]

Pronouns

The pronouns of Trinidadian French Creole are the exact same as most other Creoles (with only small differences from the neighbouring Grenadian French Creole).^[10]

To form the possessive pronoun (words such as “yours” or “mine”) the relevant possessive pronoun is added to the word “sla” for example the word for “yours” is “sla-ou” (sometimes shortened to “sla’w”). For the plural form it is necessary to add “a” “an” or “la” after the word. For example, “yours” plural would be sla’w-a.^[12]: 38

Tenses

In Creole the verb does not change depending on who or when the action is being done, but the word before the verb does (ka/ké/té ka etc.).^[13]

Sample sayings

Some regularly used sayings in Trinidadian French-Creole:^{[citation needed]}

• Tonné ka fè pè mé zéklè ka tjwé: The thunder frightens, but the lightning smites (Thunder makes fear but the lightning kills)
• Makak konnèt ki bwa monté [or] Makak konnè ki bwa monté: Monkey knows which tree to climb
• Makak sav ki pyé-bwa i ka monté: Monkey knows which tree of wood it climbs (“Sav” is commonly used in French Guiana, Martinique and Guadeloupe but other islands also use it as well as “Konné”)^[17]
• Sé bouch kabwit ki ka wand kabwit: The goat betrays itself by its own voice (Is the mouth of the goat that betrays the goat).
• Sé yon-vole ki ka twapé lót: It takes a thief to catch a thief (Is a thief that captures another).