Penny Cuts: Differentiation of Creole Varieties in Trinidad, 1904-1906

From 1904 to 1906 a series of linked vernacular texts — purportedly written by Trinidadians and other West Indians, including Barbadians — appeared in the Trinidadian newspaper Penny Cuts. Trinidadian English Creole (TEC), a fundamentally stable and clearly creole language throughout the 19th century and well into the 20th, included several varieties, containing more and less English influence. The texts appear linguistically reliable, and show that by this time, TEC was recognizably different from other creole varieties. This differentiation is held to be closely related to the contemporary social situation, reflecting a nationalist/nativist movement towards self-identification.