English is the predominant language. As of 2010, Spanish or Spanish Creole is spoken by 17.2% of the population age five and older, French or French Creole is spoken by 8.6%, and other languages are spoken by 2.5%. English has been the predominant language since 1917, when the islands were transferred from Denmark to the United States. Under Danish rule, the official language was Danish, but it was solely the language of administration and spoken by Danes, a tiny minority of the overall population that primarily occupied administrative roles in colonial Danish West Indian society. Place names and surnames of Denmark–Norway origin are still common. Although the U.S. Virgin Islands was a Danish possession during most of its colonial history, Danish never was a spoken language among the populace, black or non-Danish white, as the majority of plantation and slave owners were of Dutch, English, Scottish, Irish, or Spanish descent. Even during Danish ownership, Dutch, another Germanic language like Danish, was more common, at least during some of those 245 years, specifically on St. Thomas and St. John, where the majority of the European settlers were Dutch. In St. Croix, English was the dominant language. St. Croix was owned by the French until 1733 when the island was sold to the Danish West Indian and Guinea Company. By 1741, there were five times as many English on the island as Danes. English Creole emerged on St. Croix more so than the Dutch Creole, which was more popular on St. Thomas and St. John. Other languages spoken in the Danish West Indies included Irish, Scots, Spanish, and French, as well as Virgin Islands English Creole. Virgin Islands Creole English, an English-based creole locally known as "dialect", is spoken in informal situations. The form of Virgin Islands Creole spoken on St. Croix, known as Crucian, is slightly different from that spoken on St. Thomas and St. John.Vergne Vargas, Aida M. 2017. A Comparative Study of the Grammatical Structures of Crucian Creole and West African Languages. Doctoral dissertation, University of Puerto Rico. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing. Because the U.S. Virgin Islands are home to thousands of immigrants from across the Caribbean, Spanish and various French creole languages are also widely spoken. Spanish is mostly spoken by Puerto Ricans in St. Croix; Puerto Rican migration was prevalent in the 1930s, '40s and '50s, when many Puerto Ricans relocated to St. Croix for work after the