Trinidad and Tobago language
The Republic of Trinidad and Tobago is one of the countries that forms the Caribbean Islands in America, whose capital is Port of Spain. It has a population of about 1.4 million inhabitants (151º) and an area of 5,131 km 2 (165º). Its human development index is high (69th) and its official currency is the Trinidadian dollar. But what language is spoken in Trinidad and Tobago?
What language do they speak in Trinidad and Tobago?
Trinidad and Tobago has one official language, English.
But despite this, English is not the most widely used language. Each island has its own dominant creole language: in Trinidad, Trinidadian Creole is predominant, and in Tobago, Tobagonian Creole is predominant.
There are several minority languages in the country, among which Spanish stands out, spoken by 5.2% of the population (94% of these as a second language).
Other minority languages include Surinamese Hindustani (15,600 speakers), Chinese (6,500), Trinidadian French Creole (3,800), and Northern Levantine Arabic (2,600). Chinese has its origin 2 centuries ago, when Great Britain brought Chinese immigrants to the islands to work for little money, since slavery had recently been abolished.
The English language
English (English) is spoken by 1,300,000 inhabitants, although it is hardly used in everyday life. It is the language of instruction in schools and is used in business, in the media, in administration and judicial systems, as well as in law.
Creole languages
Both English-based, Trinidadian Creole (spoken by 1,000,000 people) and Tobagonian Creole (300,000) reflect the heritage of the indigenous, Spanish, African (especially Yoruba), and Asian (especially Chinese); both languages are a mixture of all these cultures. Trinidadian also has influences from French and Patois.
The Spanish language
In 2005, the Trinidadian government launched the “ Spanish Implementation Secretariat (SIS)”, with the aim of bringing Spanish to the position of first foreign language (SAFFL). Spanish is very important on the island, due to the growing commercial, cultural and educational relations with the Spanish-speaking countries that surround it. The SIS has more objectives, such as facilitating new learning spaces and promoting the dissemination and support of Spanish.
Share which languages are spoken in Trinidad and Tobago.