Dr Lise Winer spent thirty years of her life researching and documenting the unique linguistic forms of Trinidad & Tobago, collecting words, reading essays and talking to people. It started as a curiosity, a desire to understand the native "dialect", but it soon became an obsession.The result is a Dictionary of the English/Creole of Trinidad and Tobago, a marathon professional work in the tradition of the respected Oxford Dictionary of the English Language.
On Friday she launched her dictionary in Toronto at the Different Booklist bookshop in the city at a small gathering representing the Caribbean diaspora, including Michael Lashley, Consul General of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.
Dr. Winer is an associate professor in the Faculty of Education at McGill University, but is no stranger to Trinidad and Tobago. She studied linguistics at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine, where she learned to love and embrace the language.
She said her interest in the Caribbean began in her native Montreal where she and other pioneers worked with children whose Caribbean background was considered an impediment to learning because their language was considered inferior.
She explained that she relied heavily on friends to help her sort out the various linguistics forms and often she was disappointed to learn that what she thought she understood was far from the "real thing".
Winer said some of the most valuable resource material came from calypsos from the 80s and before, noting that she stopped listening when "lyrics went the way of the Dodo".
Winer emphasized the importance of acknowledging Trinidadian and other creoles as legitimate languages with rules and assumptions about the world that may differ from standard English.
Winer spoke with passion about her work and "adventures" in Trinidad and Tobago. She said language represents the soul of a people and nowhere is this more evident in Trinidad and Tobago where people from everywhere came together to create something unique.
She said when she started this project three decades ago she did not know what she was doing or how it would end. She said she was encouraged by the great Caribbean lexicographer Fred Cassidy who said "no one with any lexicography training would touch Trinidadian with a barge pole.”
She added, “There were no previous works to base a dictionary on, and a lot of very ambiguous data. He preached persistence!”
Winer said a dictionary is never finished, but she had to stop at some point so her dictionary could be published during her lifetime.
She called her work a "descriptive dictionary, reporting as faithfully as possible the reality of this language; thus all relevant words are included, pleasant or not."
Winer expressed her gratitude to the National Gas company of Trinidad and Tobago for its strong support in buying one dictionary for every school and library in the country. Without such commitment, she said, the cost of publishing would have been prohibitive.
The dictionary is a fascinating work by a true professional who admitted Friday that she was only able to undertake and complete it through her sheer determination and passion for what she was doing.
The book is a collection of thousands of Trinidad and Tobago words, 1,040 pages and weighs two kilos.
Consul General Lashley praised Winer for producing the book and made it known that as a passionate linguistics scholar he found it to meet all the high professional stanards one should expect from a good dictionary.
Lashley is a collector of the world's best dictionaries and said at last count he had 27 in his library.
The diplomat congratulated Winer for her professionalism in the way she presented the work. He observed that it represented Winer's life's work, and it is a tribute to her dedication to document the language of the cultural and lingustic mosaic that is Trinidad and Tobago.
Winer said her work is one that has been done with "respect, admiration, and friendship for the people of Trinidad and Tobago, who have made this language."
She pronounced it "book fadder!"
Indeed it is! This is a book that must be in every library. It is, like Winer said, the soul of a people, a fascinating collection of words that are as unique as the people who made "this language"
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Dictionary of the English/Creole of Trinidad and Tobago is available in Toronto at a Different Booklist 746, Bathurst Street, Toronto at Cdn$85.00. It's also available from McGill-Queen's University Press
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