Torres Strait Creole
Facts
- Language: Torres Strait Creole
- Alternate names: Torres Strait Pidgin, Torres Strait Broken, Cape York Creole, Lockhart Creole, West Torres
- Language code: tcs
- Language family: Indo-European, Classical Indo-European, Germanic, Northwest Germanic, West Germanic, North Sea Germanic, Anglo-Frisian, Anglic, Later Anglic, Middle-Modern English, Macro-English, Pacific Creole English, Early Melanesian Pidgin
- Creole language
- Number of speakers: 23400
- Vulnerability: Vulnerable [Read more...]
- Script:
More information:
Introduction
Torres Strait Creole is a creole language spoken on several Torres Strait Islands (Queensland, Australia), Northern Cape York and South-Western Coastal Papua. It is widely used as a language of trade and commerce. Its main characteristics show that it is a Pacific Pidgin, however the future in X [i] go VERB aligns it with Atlantic Creoles. Related languages are Pijin of the Solomon Islands, Tok Pisin of Papua New Guinea, and Bislama of Vanuatu. The other Creoles of Australia (Roper River Kriol etc.) are more distantly related, being descendants of the Pidgin English that developed in and around Sydney after the colonisation of Australia.
Records of a pidgin English being used in Torres Strait exist at least from the 1840s, and therefore Torres Strait Creole may very well by older than its sister languages, and not a descendant of any of these. The main importers of the pidgin were British and other sailors (some of whom were South Sea Islanders), and therefore Brokan has various characteristics of this strong British Sailor's Pidgin English influence. The main influences were Singapore Pidgin, Pacific Pidgin and Jamaican Creole.
The verb
Sample verb: lugaut
| remote future | bambai X (i) go lugaut |
| near future | X (i) go lugaut |
| present | X (i) lugaut |
| recent past | X (i) zasnau (bin) lugaut |
| past | X (i) bin lugaut |
| completive past | X (i) pinis/oredi lugaut |
| habitual past | X (i) yustu bin lugaut |
| advice | X (i) sud lugaut |
| obligation | X (i) mas/aptu lugaut |
| dependent obligation | X (i) blo/spostu lugaut |
Sample verbs:
- dudu 'sit' (der. from Austronesian)
- kaikai 'eat' (der. from Austronesian)
- lugaut 'take care, beware' (der. from 'look out')
- makan 'eat' (der. from Austronesian)
Verblist
- sidaun
- sidaun daun