Originally, the Arawaks
The first semi-nomadic Meso-Indian inhabitants of the island came from Venezuela by dugout canoe and settled along the coast between 3,350 and 400 BC. Subsequent Arawak-speaking populations (around 550 BC) preferred the interior. Saint-Martin boasts the oldest archaeological site in the Lesser Antilles, on the heights of Hope Estate. They then migrated to the seaside between 250 and 700 AD. There is evidence of the presence of Taïnos (from the Greater Antilles) as late as 1650, thirty years after the arrival of the first European settlers.
A particularly mixed population
The populations of the Caribbean islands are generally mixed, but this is particularly true of Saint-Martin. Although no descendants of the island's original inhabitants, the Amerindians, remain, the interbreeding is due in particular to the arrival of European settlers, themselves of different nationalities (French, Dutch, Spanish, English, Portuguese) and to the history of slavery and the slave trade. After abolition (1848 in the French part, 1863 in the Dutch part), the inhabitants of Saint-Martin regularly migrated (then re-immigrated) to the surrounding islands, mainly for economic reasons. As in the rest of the West Indies, Indians, pejoratively called "coolies", were recruited to make up for the lack of manpower, as were Syro-Lebanese around the same time (mid-19th century). After the installation of the prefecture in 1863, many "metropolitans" arrived, followed by Guadeloupeans, Haitians and, more recently, Dominicans, Jamaicans, etc., as a result of tax exemption laws and the construction frenzy. Today, around 30% of the population of the French part of the island is foreign.
... and young
The population grew rapidly, especially in the 1980s, mainly thanks to the development of tourism. Since the early 1980s, there has also been a demographic explosion due to a massive influx of people attracted by the construction boom, triggered by the Pons tax exemption law, which has never worked as well as it has on Saint-Martin. In 1982, the French part of the island had a population of just 8,000, rising to over 28,000 in 1990. In 2013, there were 75,000 inhabitants on the whole island. Today, barely 15% of the population is actually from Saint-Martin. According to the IEDOM (Institut d'Émission des Départements d'Outre-Mer), 40.3% of the population was under 25 in 2013 (31.9% in Guadeloupe, for comparison). The average age of the population is 32.8, compared with 28.2 in 1999. Over the next 10 years, the trend looks set to be equally young (25.6% of the population under 15, compared with 27.6% in 2013), taking into account the sharp increase in the number of over-65s (10.3% in 2030, compared with 6.4% in 2013). In addition to aging, the population is shrinking and the island is losing inhabitants every year.
A polyglot island
The two official languages on Saint-Martin are French and Dutch. However, whether on the Dutch or French side, English is the most commonly spoken language and remains a means of uniting the island's population. English is not used in its standard form. It has many phonetic, morphological and vocabulary variations. We speak of broken English, or pidgin English, a kind of Caribbean patois, which blends British, French, Latin, African and other influences.
Spanish is also spoken on the island, due to immigration from neighboring Spanish-speaking islands, mainly the Dominican Republic.
Even if the word "Creole" does indeed designate a language in its own right, the evolution of each language has brought with it a second necessity, that of differentiating Creole according to the areas in which it is spoken. That's why today we speak of Creole from Reunion, Martinique, Guadeloupe, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and elsewhere. As for Saint-Martin, the island has communities that speak Creole from different areas (Martinique, Guadeloupe, Haiti, Dominica, Saint Lucia, etc.). Despite the variations, it is possible to converse in Creole and understand each other without belonging to the same community.
Papiamento, the Creole of the Dutch Antilles, is spoken mainly by the populations of Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao. Its name derives from the word "papaer", which means "to speak" in Old Portuguese. There are a few variations, depending on the island. It is called papiamento on Aruba and papiamentu on Bonaire and Curaçao.
The language of justice
The northern part of the island of Saint-Martin is part of the French Republic, so legal proceedings are always conducted in French. Translators are available for foreigners or immigrants who, in some cases, only know Creole, Spanish or English. On the Dutch side, all official documents are published in Dutch, despite the fact that a large proportion of the population does not speak the language.
