Saint Kitts Creole

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Saint Kitts Creole is a dialect of Leeward Caribbean Creole English spoken in Saint Kitts and Nevis by around 40,000 people. Saint Kitts Creole does not have the status of an official language.

Saint Kitts Creole has much the same history as other English Caribbean creoles. Its origin lies in 17th-century enslaved West Africans, who, when brought to the islands to work on sugar plantations, were forced to learn British English quickly because their labour required it. Their English was mixed with West African words and, in some cases, West African language structure. The French, who occupied the island from 1625 to 1713, had only a small impact on the creole spoken today, unlike in the formerly French islands of Dominica and Saint Lucia, which speak a French-based rather than English-based creole.

Saint Kitts Creole today is spoken on the islands of St. Kitts and Nevis (although Nevisians refer to the language as "Nevisian" or "Nevis creole"), mainly in rural areas, and is spoken especially heavily in Capesterre, i.e. the east coast of St. Kitts (Christ Church Nichola Town, Cayon), and Nevis. Today's use of the creole involves a higher proportion of Standard English, possibly due to access to foreign media. Usually, only residents in rural areas are strong creole users, although mesolectal forms of the language are employed by the majority of the population. They may sound Jamaican, but the Jamaican patois has no influence on the Saint Kitts and Nevis accent. Saint Kitts pronunciation is similar to the pronunciation on the neighbouring islands of Antigua and Montserrat, but with slight differences that are mostly noticeable only to residents of the Leeward Islands.