The dialect co-exists on St. Barts alongside Antillean Creole and Standard French.
Despite this linguistic diversity on so small an island, fluency across the varieties of French is generally uncommon.
[1] A small population of St. Barth's fishermen settled in St. Thomas (over 200 km away) in the 19th century.
[2] The enclave of fewer than 1000 people has maintained its language despite great pressure from the surrounding community.
However, in recent years, emigration to the United States has increased the rate of attrition to English.