Speak Saint

Understand what Saints are saying

The Human Brain starts working the moment you are born and never stops until you stand up to speak in public!{b}

English may be our official language, but isolation and our complex heritage have given islanders a special way of speaking

Please note that on this page the ‘Saint’ pronunciation is rendered phonetically, as it would sound to an English speaker, and displayed thus.

Understanding spoken Saint

If you are identified as a visitor everyone will speak to you in good English, but if you hear a group of Saints talking amongst themselves you may find it hard to follow what they are saying. Over many generations St Helena has developed its own patois which we refer to as ‘Saint’ or ‘Saint-speak’. It’s basically English but with some variants, new words and curious expressions. And you could live here for many years and still not understand them all.

We came ashore in one of Solomon’s boats with Charley Wade and Fred Hurst as crew. I had been assured that everyone spoke English but I am sure that I only understood one word in five that Fred spoke to me on the way in.{c}

Here are some features you may encounter:

Pronunciation

• The letter ‘o’ is often elongated as if ‘or’, hence orff (‘off’), jorb (‘job’) and porket (‘pocket’).

• The letter ‘a’ is pronounced like ea, so ‘bare’ is pronounced beare (more like ‘beer’).

• The ‘h’ is usually omitted from a ‘th’ word, thus ting and tank you.

• Words that in English are pronounced with a short ‘e’ are pronounced in Saint with an elongated ‘e’ and an ‘a’, so ‘bread’ is pronounced more like breead. Similarly beead for ‘bed’.

• Extending the above, the word ‘yes’ is pronounced more like eeirce - roughly as you would say ‘pierce’ but without the ‘p’!

• Funeral is pronounced like fewnel.

• The letter ‘v’ is often pronounced as a ‘w’ and vive-versa, and hence for some St Helena was created by two wolcanos. There is variation as to whether the second settlement in Blue Hill is Head O’Wain or Head O’Vain This can be werry confusing…☺

• The letter ‘t’ is frequently omitted when it ends a word. Thus ‘project’ is pronounced as projec.

• ‘Fishing’ is pronounced as if there is a superfluous ‘en’ - fishenin’.

• Some common(-ish) words are pronounced in unexpected ways:

  • ‘August’ is pronounced O gus;

  • ‘July’ is pronounced with the emphasis on the first syllable - Jew lie;

  • ‘Boutique’ is pronounced the American way - Bow-Teek; and

  • ‘Buoy’ is also pronounced the American way - booey.

For the Tourist Information Office official promotional video in 2011 the Saints were subtitled…

Word usage

• Where ‘a couple’ in English always means two, in Saint it can be two or more. Having a couple of friends round can be a large party! There is also a good couple, which is more than a couple (but exactly how many more is not clear), and a nice couple which broadly means ‘sufficient for your needs’ (so have a nice couple of crisps/chips means, effectively, ‘take as many as you want’). Beware, therefore, if someone says that doing your job will take a couple of days, and if they say it will take a good couple of days don’t expect it done in the foreseeable future.

• Words can be shortened, so ‘your’ is often you (What you name?).

• Sometimes the Saint word is a substitution for the English one. Examples include ‘we’ which has been replaced by us, ‘have’ replaced with has and ‘are’ replaced with is. Thus us has bin out (‘we have been out’) and us is goin’ home. I had up late translates as ‘I got up late’.

• If your food has bite it means it’s spicy, as in full of chillies. Most Saint food has bite, especially soup and Fishcakes.

• Often the Saint is simply a contraction of the English. Hence mussie for ‘must be’, most for ‘almost’, nuff for ‘enough’ and bitta for ‘a bit of’. Children are Chirren.

• It may at first seem odd that make aten means ‘pretend’ until you pronounce it (in Saint-style). Similary for miggies now (hurry up - literally ‘make haste now’).

• You will find the word see appended to any sentence, as an interrogative to confirm understanding. Hence us has nine boats, see? (to which the correct response is eeirce).

• Usually done is used to generate a past tense. Thus I done gorn fishing (‘I went fishing’ - more literally ‘I have been fishing’).

• The indefinite article ‘a’ (or ‘an’) has been replaced by one. Hence us has got one complaint (‘we have a complaint’, or possibly ‘I have a complaint’) and it’ll be one five minutes.

• Where you stay? is actually a request to know where you live. English usage treats ‘stay’ as a temporary state but Saint allows it to be either.

• The standard greeting for a friend or relative (which is, after all, just about everybody) is lurvie - probably just a local pronounciation of ‘luvvy’, a common English term of endearment.

• phew ya is a generic exclamation, as in phew ya, it some hot! (‘I say, it’s hot!’{1}).

• festered is Saint for ‘Infested’, as in festered with White Ants.

• If you don’t know somebody’s name you might ask a fellow who’s his name, now? or what his name is?

• Children fathered outside an established relationship (not necessarily a formal marriage) are referred to as spares or scatterings.

• park is used to refer to a vehicle-parking space.

• A gecko is locally known as a lizard.

• If someone shows you a plant which they call Diddlidite don’t eat it - it’s the local term for ‘Deadly Nightshade’.

I almost have enough - can I borrow a little cash?

In addition, Saint often borrows from American usage. This probably relates to the first movement of Saints to Ascension Island in the 1940s where they encountered Americans at the USAF Base and picked up their terms{2}, bringing these back to St Helena when they came home. Thus what the English call ‘Crisps‘ are known locally as Chips and ‘Chips’ are known as French Fries. Pants are not underwear, as in British English; they are trousers, as in American English.

Phrases

• You will hear Saints refer to the before days - a reference to any time in the past.

• If you’re asked How you is? you are being asked about your wellbeing (‘How are you?’). Similarly What you name is? and Who you is?. Who you belong to? is an enquiry about your parentage.

• He look some cool is a sartorial compliment.

• A swing round is a dance.

• Flush down The Run is a term for Curry.

• The question Can I go by dere? means, more precisely, ‘Can I go into there’, as with a building or room.

• Him goin to Town means he is making a trip to Jamestown. This may be in response to the question Where he done gorn?

• When a ship arrives (the Sea Freight service; visiting Cruise Ships; formerly the RMS St Helena (1990-2018); etc.) it drops anchor then sounds its horn - a single blast. This is referred to as Blowing Off.

• In Saint you do not ‘Put the fox in charge of the hen-house’ (we have no foxes here), nor do you ‘Put Dracula in charge of the blood bank’ (as far as we know we have no vampires here) - you Put the goat in charge of the vegetable patch.

• If you are taking a circuitous route, you are Going right round the ridges to get to The Castle (The Ridges being the Peaks, which are surrounded by a very winding circular road).

• Who she goin’ be sick by? is how you ask about the father of a woman’s baby.

• You can probably work out what it means when someone is described as not so swift (hint: it isn’t about running speed).

• It’s good news if Us is party now because that means there is about to be a party/dance/etc.

• If two people are talking to each other they are having an ongoing sexual relationship.

• And finally, spitting the dick is speaking ‘proper’ English, possibly after a demand that you speak tidy.

And talking about Americans, recently people on St Helena have started wishing each other ’Happy Holidays!!’…

Medical Confusion

Sometimes a term in Saint is the same as an English one, but is used with a different meaning. Below are some examples. Doctors beware!

• When a Saint says they have Flu what they actually (usually) mean is they have a common cold. Those not familiar with Saint-speak tend to assume the person is simply exaggerationg to get sympathy.

• You know how sometimes when you move, your bones make a popping or cracking noise? In Saint this is referred to as the bones dislocating. Like Flu, this is often treated as the person making an exaggerated claim.

• If a Saint says they have dysentery you do not need to panic - they simply have diarrhea - unpleasant but not life threatening!

• If you read ‘Word usage’ (above) you can probably work out what someone means if they say they is festered with lice.

• If someone has got sugar they have Diabetes.

• When a woman says she is going to be sick she is probably saying she is pregnant.

Tuning in

Try these ‘sounds like’s, and other useful phrases:

Try for yourself

Got all that? Want to give it a try? See how much of the audio clip (right) you can understand. (He’s actually describing his role in the escape of Boer PoW Andries Smorenburg, recorded in 1962.)

If you coped with that, how about a song by famous island singer Matty John, also recorded in 1962 (right)? (This must be a very old song, as it relates to the St Helena whaling industry, which collapsed in the late 19th Century. It was doubtless passed down over many generations. As far as we know nobody sings it today, so this may be the only record of the song{4})

Regional dialects

It may be surprising to hear but even in an island as small as St Helena there used to be (and perhaps still are) regional dialects. Writing in ‘Saints: Spatial identities of the citizens of Saint HelenaⒾ’ (2002, P88) the researchers report:

The town dialect is different from the country dialects. For example, townspeople are known for saying te instead of ‘the’. According to Susan O’Bey{5}:

there is rivalry as well. You know when I went to school I used to laugh at my country friends about the way they spoke. And just the same they would laugh at us.

Differences between town and country seem to have significantly decreased since more and more people got cars, and especially since the opening of Prince Andrew School.

So how will you communicate?

Fortunately Saints can generally speak good English, and will automatically do so to anyone they identify as a visitor. So as long as you speak basic English you should be OK. But when you’re standing in a shop and you overhear two Saints discussing today’s news, some of the tips above may help you figure out what’s going on.

Beware what you say…

…you could fall foul of this ancient statute{6}:

Whereas several idle, gossiping women make it their business to go from house to house, about the island, inventing and spreading false and scandalous reports of the good people thereof, and thereby sow discord and debate among neighbours, and often between men and their wives, to the great grief and trouble of all good and quiet people and to the utter extinguishing of all friendship, amity, and good neighbourhood; for the punishment and suppression whereof, and to the intent that all strife may be ended, charity revived, and friendship continued, we do order that if any woman from henceforwards shall be convicted of tale-bearing, mischief-making, scolding, drunkenness, or any other notorious vices, they shall be punished by ducking or whipping, or such other punishment as their crimes or transgressions shall deserve, as the Governor and Council shall think fit.

‘Speaking Saint’ - the books

In 2015 a book entitled ‘Speaking Saint’ was published by Creative Saint Helena.

Speaking Saint is a loose and mixed collection of writing, from authors ranging in age and experience. It is Saint Helenian: the everyday, the unusual, local and international, real and imaginary. [᠁] Much of Speaking Saint is written in what we call ‘Saint English’. It is the dialect of the island. To an untrained ear this can be considered ‘bad’ English. It is not. ‘Splitting the dick’ is what Saints say when they are using ‘proper’ English, often reserved for when non-Saints are in company. It is ‘Saint English’ that is the language of Saint Helena. It breathes life, value and authenticity into the cultural landscape.

A second book, ‘Speaking Saint - Next One’ was published at the end of 2015. In this second book of rich and diverse stories from ‘The Rock’, the collection seeks to capture local experience, knowledge and tradition with writing by Saints and by those from overseas who live and work here.

More are planned for the future…

‘Speaking Saint’ is available from island shops and for Kindle™ via Amazon.co.uk.

You can listen to one of the entries, read in ‘Saint’ (story by Janet Lawrence; read by Tammy Williams) (right)

And finally, a cautionary tale…

Around Christmas 2007 two chaps from the Democratic Republic of Congo were discovered aboard a ship that was passing St Helena and were cast adrift in a rowing boat, landing here. While their fate was decided they were held in the Jamestown prison. Initially they spoke no English but in the two months they remained there they learned to communicate and upon their departure considered themselves to be reasonably proficient in English. Imagine their surprise, therefore, when upon arriving at their destination and trying out their new skill, nobody could understand a word they said. They had, of course, learned Saint, not English, complete with local pronunciation, and hence were almost unintelligible to English speakers everywhere else!

Read More

Article: The English of ‘Saints’

By Asya Pereltsvaig, published on Languages of the World 7th December 2010{7}

The island of St Helena is in mid-central South Atlantic Ocean, south of the equator, and about 1,900km west of Angola’s coast. St Helena’s (geographically) nearest neighbour is Ascension Island, which is to be found more than 1,000Km to the northwest of St Helena. St Helena itself consists of approximately 122Km² of relatively steep, barren and rocky territory, mostly unsuitable for cultivation. However, it also has a relatively mild climate favoured by the Southeast Trade Winds. The capital - and only town - of St Helena is Jamestown, while other settlements bear such romantic names as Half Tree Hollow, Blue Hill, Sandy Bay and Longwood. The latter was also the place of exile for Napoleon Bonaparte, who spent nearly seven years there.

St Helenian English goes back to the mid-17th century when The East India Company established a colony on St Helena in 1658. This makes St Helena’s English the oldest variety of Southern Hemisphere English. In fact, it is more than a century older than the major varieties of South African, Australian and New Zealand English! While the Dutch had a short interregnum on St Helena in the early 1670s, and additional settlers came from France, West Africa, the Capoverde Islands, the Indian subcontinent and Madagascar, the English influence on St Helena is the most pervasive.

Today, St Helena continues to be one of the most isolated native-English-speaker communities in the world. There is no airport on the island and only a single government-subsidized ship connects St Helena to Ascension Island and Cape Town.

The recent legal changes in the U.K. allowed increased emigration from St Helena: since 1999 nearly 30% of ‘Saints’ (mostly young ones) left the island in search of better job opportunities elsewhere in the UK. The current population of the island is about 4,000 people.

So what is St Helenian English like? It’s sound system (especially the pronunciation of vowels) is rather unremarkable. As is the case for most other British-English influenced varieties of English worldwide, St Helenian English is a non-rhotic variety, meaning that /r/ is pronounced only if a vowel follows it in the same word. Some Saints also pronounce the /r/ if it is followed by a vowel in the following word (this is the so-called ‘linking r’), but this - and the related phenomenon of ‘intrusive r’, as in idea[r] - is not as common as in some other non-rhotic varieties of English.

Another interesting feature of St Helenian English is the pronunciation of the intervocalic /t/ as a flap. Thus, the Saints’ pronunciation of the middle consonant in better, letter and butter is the same as in American English and different from RP (or Queen’s English). This is particularly curious because in general the intervocalic flap tends to correlate with rhotic accents (such as American English, Irish English).

Among other peculiarities of St Helenian English is the pronunciation of th-sounds as alveolar stops [t] and [d] rather than as interdental fricatives. This ‘simplification’ is found in many non-standard varieties of English, including African-American Vernacular English (AAVE). Also, like in AAVE, the word-final consonant clusters are simplified by deleting one of the consonants, as in buil’ for ‘build’ and lef’ for ‘left’.

St Helenian English also features many non-standard grammatical peculiarities, such as the lack of plural marking after numerals (e.g., seventy pound, twelve month, there wasn’t many house and even Falkland Island) and allowing null subjects (e.g., Ø met with two girls on the train). Moreover, the first person plural pronoun is us, regardless of its position in the sentence (e.g., us come up Peak Hill…us had a very saucy school master). Like many other non-standard varieties of English, a special form is used for the second person plural pronoun: the Saints’ choice is y’all, as in the U.S. South (e.g., So y’all be goin’ back soon?).

Among other non-standard features found in St Helenian English are the omission of past tense -ed and the use of demonstratives to mark definites, both illustrated by I never walk around much them days.

Much like AAVE and other non-standard forms of English, St Helenian English allows multiple negation, as in You no eat no food. Saints’ questions do not involve inversion or do-support (e.g., Where you lef’ you car?). Finally, like Scottish English and the dialects of Southern U.S. English, St Helenian English uses the double modal construction, as in What I bring you may can draw out.

Mistakes happen too…