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Trini Talk

Trinidadian Creole
Canarsie +2
CaribbeanTrinidad and Tobago flagTrinidad and Tobago
Census
Community Profile: The broad term Caribbean English refers to a whole range of Englishes — from highly distinctive creoles to "acrolectal" varieties close to other forms of English — spoken across much of the Caribbean. Beyond the varieties spoken by Jamaicans, Trinidadians, and Guyanese, which are the large Anglophone Caribbean communities in New York, there are also significant populations from Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Bahamas, Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, and the Virgin Islands who have brought their own specific Caribbean cultures to the city. A Caribbean presence in the city goes back centuries, but larger waves started coming in the early 20th century and especially beginning in the 1950s. Today there are individuals from 17 English-speaking nations and territories, with the largest numbers in Brooklyn from Flatbush into Canarsie, but also in southeast Queens and the northeast Bronx. The Labor Day Carnival in Brooklyn is a major annual event that unites all these communities in a common celebration.
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N

ew York is a major center of the Trinidadian and Tobagonian diaspora, with most Afro-Trinidadians living in Brooklyn, in a range of neighborhoods stretching from Crown Heights to Canarsie and Indo-Trinidadians, like most Indo-Guyanese, living in the Queens neighborhoods of Richmond Hill and Ozone Park. Most Trinidadians from both communities use the English-based creole, sometimes called Trini Talk, as a language of daily life distinct from "standard English". A smaller but still significant number of New Yorkers also have knowledge of the distinct Tobagonian Creole. (The endangered Trinidadian French Creole may also be known by some.) 2015-2019 American Community Survey data estimated that 79,175 New Yorkers were born in Trinidad and Tobago, a large percentage of whom are likely to be Creole speakers, even if they were recorded as being speakers of English (81,381) with smaller numbers speaking other languages: Spanish (1,002), French (346), Hindi (156), Urdu (8), Bengali (71), and more.

Note that the language above may be used throughout the New York area — this is just one significant site.
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Trini Talk

Trinidadian Creole

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