What is there about the fact that we speak an English-based dialect here on St. Martin that bothers France so much? I'm sure they cannot understand the French-based ones spoken around the world any more than they understand ours.
It has been said that France has forgiven Germany for invading them but will never forgive the U.K, the USA and Australia (all of whome speak English), for having liberated them.
Now, St. Martin has been English-speaking for centuries. The island is surrounded by English-speaking islands, including the Southern side of St. Martin itself, where most of us have family members and other relatives.
Having said that, it is true that we should be able to speak French, if only to be able to defend ourselves, and when I look around, since France 'rediscovered' us in the seventies, most young people have been attending French school. Not without problems, since the children are expected to know the French language from the day they enter school.
If we gave up speaking English, what would we become? We would become like the French, monolingual and would be like Guadeloupe and Martinique, unable to communicate with our Caribbean neighbors. Not forgetting our relatives on the Dutch side of the island. Must they learn French too?
My feeling is where other dialects are concerned, most of which are incomprehensible to others of the English and French speaking world, our dialect, even though ridiculed many times as 'broken English', would still be and is understood by most English speaking people who come to this island. Maybe even the French are unwilling to admit that they understand more of our dialect than they can of French-based ones!
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