Vernacular Liberian English is the language of most English-speaking Liberians today. First references to the Pidgin go back as far as the beginning of the 18th century. Troops and labourers at a major rubber plantation brought their language with them as the Liberian government reached out from the coastal areas and took control of the interior of the country. VLibE had at first been a local variety of the pidginized English of the West African coast more generally but was strongly influenced by Liberian Settler English as soon as the first settlers arrived in the 1820s. For this reason it now sharply diverges from Pidgin English in the rest of West Africa.