The Theory and Practice of Creole Grammar provided the first overview of French-inflected Creole in the Caribbean. It considers Creole as a language in its own right marrying French and African forms, rather than “only mispronounced French” (iv). New Beacon’s reprint of John Jacob Thomas’s ground-breaking book was based on a facsimile reprint of the original 1869 text published by Chronicle Publishing, Port of Spain.

John Jacob Thomas was a school teacher who benefited from the first wave of free secular education reforms in Trinidad in the 1850s. He worked as a ward teacher in Savonetta and in rural elementary schools for twelve years in total, during which time he learned French, Spanish, and extended his knowledge of Creole by collecting proverbs and songs. He subsequently worked as a civil servant and was active in Trinidad’s first literary journal: The Trinidad Monthly and an early organised literary society, The Trinidad Athenaeum. He knew Greek and Latin and continued to teach these subjects while writing on education policy in Trinidad (Smith, 2002).

Author; J.J. Thomas

Publisher; New Beacon Books

ISBN ; 901241040