St Vincent and the Grenadines
St Vincent and the Grenadines Culture & Language
Culture
The culture is Afro-Caribbean, shaped by an unusually long and successful resistance to colonisation and by the sea.
Garifuna heritage
The Garifuna emerged on St Vincent from the mixing of Africans and the indigenous Kalinago, and fought the British to a standstill through two Carib Wars before the deportation of 1797 scattered the survivors to Central America. Their language, dance and music — which developed further in Belize, Honduras and Guatemala — are UNESCO-listed, and the anniversary of the deportation is marked here each March. It is the reason a small island has a diaspora culture recognised across two continents.
Boatbuilding
Bequia built and sailed double-ended whaleboats, and the skill survives in the model boats made in the island’s workshops, which are genuinely fine objects rather than souvenirs. The island holds one of very few aboriginal subsistence whaling quotas in the world, taking a handful of humpbacks by hand-thrown harpoon — a practice that is both a heritage claim and a live controversy.
Music
Calypso and soca for Vincy Mas in early July, with steel pan, big drum traditions in the north, and a strong gospel presence.
The breadfruit
Captain Bligh finally delivered breadfruit plants here in 1793, after the voyage that ended in the mutiny had failed to. A tree in the botanic gardens is said to descend from them, and breadfruit is now a staple.
Mustique
Bought in 1958 by a British aristocrat and developed as a private island of around a hundred villas, it acquired a reputation as a retreat for royalty and rock musicians that has outlasted most of the people who gave it one. It is owned by a company of its homeowners, day visitors are limited, and it sits a few kilometres from islands with a quite different standard of living — a juxtaposition Vincentians discuss with more irony than resentment.
Food
Roast breadfruit and fried jackfish, the national dish; callaloo, saltfish, and rotis.
Language Basics
English is the official language and is spoken by everyone, in government, schooling and business. A visitor needs nothing else.
Vincentian Creole is what people speak among themselves — English-lexified, with its own grammar, rhythm and vocabulary, and fast enough that visitors often catch only part of it. It is not incorrect English but a distinct variety, and nobody will mind if you ask someone to repeat.
Some French-derived vocabulary survives from the period of French presence, particularly in place names.
A few Garifuna and Kalinago words persist in place names in the north-east of the main island.
Useful to know: lime means to hang about sociably and is what people do in the evening, and vex means annoyed.