A little historical fact: St. Kitts was the first island in the Caribbean to be colonized. The English were the first in and immediately set to exploiting the land for its capacity to produce large quantities of sugar cane. Well, their slaves did it, they just sat their with whips. The French, Dutch and Spanish all took a number of goes at usurping control, but ultimately all failed. As a result, St.Kitts-Nevis is now an English-speaking country. Or so they told me. For the first few weeks I was here, I would be sitting on buses or walking in town and not be able to understand a word people were saying and thought it was their thick accents, only to later learn that it was because they weren’t speaking English – they were speaking patois.
Patois essentially means a local dialect; it is not officially a language and many countries have their own patois, Jamaica’s being the most famous version. Some people don’t even consider patois to be a dialect and see it just as a bastardization of English, but trust me, it’s NOT. I challenge any of you to understand what the hell they are saying; you could probably understand Farsi better.
This island language has, however, taken on a life of its own. Over the years, different versions have evolved in communities to the point that people from different areas must now converse with each other in English to be understood - which is a plus for me! St.Kitts English is however, still influenced by patois commonalities. First and foremost, is the subject/verb placement and verb conjugation; the verb “to be” is NEVER conjugated. It is always just “be.” When wondering on a person’s whereabouts, for example, “Where is he?” or “Where are you?” would never be heard, it is always: “Where he be?” or “Where you be?” Or you can just leave the verb out altogether. The response to “Where he be?” would be, “he gone.”
The pluralization of nouns is also widely ignored, as is the past tense. Also, there is no such word as “my” or “your.” “My” is always replaced with “me” and “your” with “you”, pronounced like “yuh” - in fact, even spelled like “yuh.” Carib, the top-selling regional beer, is brewed here and their slogan is: “Like Yuhself.” The other thing is the re-placement of letters in English words. Everyone here pronounces “ask” as “aks.”
I would sound like an idiot if I employed this manner of speaking, but I have tried to conform a bit by using the word “stay” rather than “stop” and saying that someone is “off island” rather than saying they are away or out of the country. But, the turn of phrase I find the funniest is their replacement word for announcing their presence. If you are coming up someone’s front walk or if knocking seems to be doing no good, you don’t call out “Hello?” you call “Outside” It makes me laugh every time.
But to be Kittian what you really need to do is “struck your teeth”. Women especially. You make fish lips and suck air in till it makes the sound of a balloon slowly losing its air. You do it to show your displeasure. And you do it often. And then you follow it up with an indignant, “I tell you!!!” or “I’m telling you!!!” Being indignant seems to be a favourite pastime for women here. It is not that they are an unhappy or a sour bunch by any means, they just enjoy expressing themselves and putting in their two cents.
Though here it is more like two dollars.
Kittian Observations Part II:
Annoying Kittian thing #2 – radio. They never let a song play – the DJs yell over the music, blast what sounds like air-raid sirens during the middles of songs, or pause the song to yell during it – this contintues for the whole duration of the song. .
Unexplained Kittian thing #4 – the vast majority of streets do not have a name. And I don’t just mean they are missing the street signs, they simply don’t have a name. And the houses don’t have numbers. If you are getting a delivery, or a friend is coming by you simply have to provide landmark directions: “when you reach the top of the hill turn right, at the third house after the big mango tree on your left you take another right, then at the turquoise house you take a left up the hill and mine is the seventh bright yellow house on your right.
Cute Kittian thing #3 – you can still use cheques here! Remember cheques?
Cute Kittian thing #4 - kids always respond politely and say good morning or afternoon
- if they don't they would probably get smacked.
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