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.
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.
In rural areas and in Nevis, /aʊ/ (as in "house") is usually pronounced [oʊ] (as in "hose").
A unique aspect of Saint Kitts Creole is to end certain sentences in the speech with the words burdee, poopa or daady buh, the meaning of which vary with context but tend to be used to emphasise the sentence they attach to; for example: Tall poopa - "not at all" (extreme).
The word "does" is often traditionally inserted where it would not appear in Standard English sentence structure.
Examples of other linguistic divergences from Standard English are Ah does buy it.
Some of the Saint Kitts Creole words listed below are unique, but others are commonly used in or originated from neighbouring islands.
Two man crab cyarn live in de the same hole - you can't have two persons in charge in a small environment.