speech & pronunciation.
A note about pronunciation and speech.
Shalini is Trinidadian, and thus, speaks like a Trinidadian. Listen to some samples here, here aaaaaaand here. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about it: Trinidadian English. Trinidadians generally speak pretty fast, with a kind of sing-song rhythm. (Or so we've been told.) Our accent is a little similar to a Welsh accent, apparently, which I can sometimes hear. 'Th' and 'thr' don't exist for us. We have a tendency to leave off the last consonant sounds in words, resulting in things like 'becaww' instead of 'because', 'nuh' instead of 'not', 'Chinee' instead of 'Chinese'.
Our English is a dialect, and as such there's no one standard that everyone uses to write it: it's first and foremost a spoken language. So, when tagging, I won't trouble myself with trying to spell out all the different pronunciations that will be evident in her speech, but I ask you to remember that it's there. The above samples should give you a good idea of what Shalini's speech will be like, and I'll just provide a few more examples.
a → ah
and → an
the → dee
think → tink
thought → tort/taut
girl → gyul
can't → cyah
So...
Standard English:
The girl went to the shop down the street and bought several soft drinks and snacks. Everyone thinks she's really greedy.
Trinidadian English; how Shalini will pronounce it:
De gyul went by de shop dong de road and buy ah set ah seedrink an snack. Evribody tink she rehl licorish.
How I'll write it:
The girl went by the shop down the road and buy a set of sweet drink and snack. Everybody think she real licorish.
She'll of course, also be using words and phrases from Trinidadian English that you won't be familiar with, like 'lime' or 'mamaguy' or 'vikey vie' or 'maco' or 'sketel'. I might put in a little notation at the bottom of my comment, but more or less, you can find most of them here. (I'll do a better glossary myself... someday.. ) As for your character... welp. They're free to ask Shalini to explain herself; she probably won't! Ooops. Some of the meaning will be evident from intonation or context, so there's that.
I'll add to this post when I'm not sleepy.
Shalini is Trinidadian, and thus, speaks like a Trinidadian. Listen to some samples here, here aaaaaaand here. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about it: Trinidadian English. Trinidadians generally speak pretty fast, with a kind of sing-song rhythm. (Or so we've been told.) Our accent is a little similar to a Welsh accent, apparently, which I can sometimes hear. 'Th' and 'thr' don't exist for us. We have a tendency to leave off the last consonant sounds in words, resulting in things like 'becaww' instead of 'because', 'nuh' instead of 'not', 'Chinee' instead of 'Chinese'.
Our English is a dialect, and as such there's no one standard that everyone uses to write it: it's first and foremost a spoken language. So, when tagging, I won't trouble myself with trying to spell out all the different pronunciations that will be evident in her speech, but I ask you to remember that it's there. The above samples should give you a good idea of what Shalini's speech will be like, and I'll just provide a few more examples.
a → ah
and → an
the → dee
think → tink
thought → tort/taut
girl → gyul
can't → cyah
So...
Standard English:
The girl went to the shop down the street and bought several soft drinks and snacks. Everyone thinks she's really greedy.
Trinidadian English; how Shalini will pronounce it:
De gyul went by de shop dong de road and buy ah set ah seedrink an snack. Evribody tink she rehl licorish.
How I'll write it:
The girl went by the shop down the road and buy a set of sweet drink and snack. Everybody think she real licorish.
She'll of course, also be using words and phrases from Trinidadian English that you won't be familiar with, like 'lime' or 'mamaguy' or 'vikey vie' or 'maco' or 'sketel'. I might put in a little notation at the bottom of my comment, but more or less, you can find most of them here. (I'll do a better glossary myself... someday.. ) As for your character... welp. They're free to ask Shalini to explain herself; she probably won't! Ooops. Some of the meaning will be evident from intonation or context, so there's that.
I'll add to this post when I'm not sleepy.