Torres Strait Creole facts for kids

Languages used at home by Torres Strait Islanders in localities with significant share of Torres Strait islander population.

Torres Strait Creole (which is called Torres Strait Creole: Yumplatok by its speakers) is a special language. It is also known by many other names like Torres Strait Pidgin or Brokan. This language is a type of creole language. A creole language starts as a mix of two or more languages and then becomes a main language for a community.

Torres Strait Creole is spoken on the Torres Strait Islands in Queensland, Australia. It is also used in Northern Cape York Peninsula and in south-western coastal Papua New Guinea. Many people use it for talking about trade and business.

Experts believe that between 20,000 and 30,000 people speak Torres Strait Creole. For many, it is their first language.

How Torres Strait Creole Started

People started using a form of English in the Torres Strait as early as the 1840s. This means Torres Strait Creole might be very old. It could even be older than other similar languages.

Many different people brought this mixed English language to the islands. These included British sailors and other sailors from places like the South Sea Islands, Jamaica, China, and Japan. Because of this, Torres Strait Creole has parts from many different types of mixed languages. These include old Malay-area Pidgin English and Pacific Pidgin. It also has parts from Jamaican Patois.

The language became a full creole language in some places quite early. For example, on Darnley Island, it might have happened before 1900. In other places like Moa and Yorke Island, it became a creole a bit later, after 1910. In other areas, it became a creole after the 1960s.

Different Ways of Speaking (Dialects)

Torres Strait Creole has six main ways of speaking, called dialects. These are Papuan, Western-Central, TI, Malay, Eastern, and Cape York.

The way people speak a dialect can change based on where they live. It also changes depending on the other languages spoken by the groups using it. For example, the Western-Central-Cape York dialects are strongly influenced by the Kala Lagaw Ya language. The Eastern dialect has influences from South Seas languages and Meriam Mìr. The Papuan dialect is influenced by languages like Agöb and Kiwai.

Differences between dialects are often in the words used for local animals and plants. There are also small differences in how words are pronounced.

How Many People Speak It?

The 2016 Australian census counted 6,171 people who spoke Yumplatok at home. However, language experts think that between 20,000 and 30,000 Indigenous Australians spoke it as their main language in 2010.

In 2007, the entire Bible was translated into Torres Strait Creole. This was called the Holi Baibul. It was the first time the Bible was fully translated into any Indigenous language in Australia.

Many Torres Strait Islander people speak Yumplatok along with their local languages. It seems that more and more people are speaking Kriol. It is also widely used for trade and business.

How Words Are Put Together (Grammar)

Pronouns

Pronouns are words like "I," "you," "he," or "they." In Torres Strait Creole, these words change depending on if they are singular (one person) or plural (more than one person). They also change if they are the subject of a sentence (doing the action) or the object (receiving the action).

Here are some examples of pronouns:

• Ai means "I" (subject).
• Mi means "me" (object).
• Yu means "you" (both subject and object).
• Em means "he," "she," or "it" (subject and object).
• Mipla means "we" (subject).
• Yumpla means "you all" (subject).
• Dhempla means "they" (subject and object).

Asking Questions and Pointing Things Out

To ask "who," "what," or "where," Torres Strait Creole uses special words.

• Wane or wanem means "what."
• We or wea means "where."
• Udha or udhat means "who."

You can also point things out using words like:

• Dhiswan or dhisan for "this" or "these."
• Dhaswan or dhasan for "that" or "those."

Articles (A, An, The)

Torres Strait Creole does not use words like "a" or "an." It uses the word dha for "the," but not as often as English does. It feels more like pointing something out.

• dha kenu means "the canoe."
• For two canoes, they might say dhemtu kenu or dhostu kenu.
• For many canoes, they say dhem kenu.

Sentence Structure (Syntax)

In Torres Strait Creole, the usual order of words in a sentence is like English: Subject-Verb-Object. For example, "I eat apple."

• Bala blo mi bi teke kenu kam baik. means "My brother brought the canoe back."

Adjectives (words that describe nouns) usually come before the noun.

• Big sisi bl'em bi kese tu prapa big redkala pis lo ausaid sanbaing. means "His/her big sister caught two really big red fish at/on the outer sandbank."

Words that show when something happened (like "will" or "did") usually come before the verb.

Verbs (Action Words)

Verbs are action words like "run," "eat," or "take." In Torres Strait Creole, verbs do not change based on who is doing the action (like "I run" vs. "he runs"). They also don't change for past, present, or future in the same way English verbs do. Instead, other words are used to show the time.

Here are some examples of how verbs work:

• X (i) go lugaut means "X will take care" (future).
• X (i) bin lugaut means "X took care" (past).
• X (i) pinis lugaut means "X has finished taking care."

Some verbs also have special endings to show if they are doing an action to something or just doing an action.

Prepositions (Words like 'In', 'On', 'To')

Prepositions are words that show relationships between words, like "in," "on," "to," or "from." Torres Strait Creole uses prepositions in ways that show the influence of local languages.

• blo means "of" or "belonging to."

* We aus blo misnari? means "Where is the priest's house?"

• pò or lo means "to" or "for."

* Bos i bi gibi wesis pò/lo mi. means "The boss gave the wages to me."

• prom means "from."

* San i dhe kam prom Dhaudhai. means "This one is coming over from Papua."

• lo, we, or ene mean "at," "in," or "on."

* Yu mas kam wantaim lo mi. means "You must come with me."

Words from Other Languages (Vocabulary)

Most words in Torres Strait Creole come from English. But it also has many words from other languages:

• From Kalaw Lagaw Ya:

* yawo means "goodbye." * matha means "only" or "very." * aka means "granny."

• From Meriam Mir:

* baker means "money."

• From Austronesian languages (like Malay, Tagalog, Samoan):

* thalinga means "ear." * bala means "brother" or "male friend." * makan means "eat." * pikinini means "child."

• From Portuguese:

* sabe means "to know" or "understand."

Examples of Torres Strait Creole

Here is a text written in Torres Strait Creole, explaining what it is:

Brokan i kriol langgus we òl i spikem lo dhem ailan blo Thoris Stret, lo nòthsaid gowe prom Kep Yòk, ausaid lo SauthWessaid blo Papua. I gad samwe waze 25,000 pipol i sabe tòkem waze namba-wan langgus, namba-tu langgus 'ne namba-thri langgus blo dhempla. Òl i yuzem lo plande ples waze langgus blo treiding an pò bai òl samthing. I gad siks kain Brokan: blo Papua, blo Westen-Sentrel, blo Tiai, blo Maleman, blo Esten, blo Kep Yòk. Òl dhem wòd blo em soem dhiskain pò yumpla, waze em i pizin blo Pasipik, dhasòl i gad wanwan thing, òlsem we yumpla spik pò taim we i go kam, yumpla yuzi dhis tòk: X [i] go meke samthing, dhisan i gad rilesen lo Kriol blo Atlantic, blo Zameka.

Thri langgus we i òlsem Brokan i Pijin blo Solomon Ailan, Tok Pisin blo Niu Gini, ane Bislama blo Banuatu.

This means: Torres Strait Creole is a creole language spoken on the Torres Strait Islands, north of Cape York, and in southwestern Papua. About 25,000 people know how to speak it as their first, second, or third language. It is used in many places as a language for trading and buying things. There are six types of Torres Strait Creole: Papuan, Western-Central, TI, Malay, Eastern, and Cape York. Its words show us that it is a Pacific Pidgin. But there is one thing, like how we speak about the future, we use this phrase: X [i] go do something. This is related to Atlantic Creoles, like Jamaican Creole.

Three languages that are similar to Torres Strait Creole are Pijin from the Solomon Islands, Tok Pisin from New Guinea, and Bislama from Vanuatu.

The Lord's Prayer in Torres Strait Creole

Padha blo mipla, yu we yu stap dhe antap lo eben,

Nem blo yu mipla mas mekem oliwan,

Bambai basalaya blo yu i mas kam,

Òl i mas meke laik blo yu iya lo apaguwa, òlsem òl i mekem we eben.

Gibi dhamba blo tide pò mipla,

Pigibi òlgedha nugud pasen blo mipla, òlsem mipla pigibi nugud pasen blo dhempla we òl i meke nugud pasen pò mipla.

No libi mipla go pò laik pò nugud thing,

Kasa dhasòl lego mipla prom nugudwan.

(Waze basalaya i blo yu, 'ne pawa,'ne glòri,)

Amen.

See also

In Spanish: Criollo del Estrecho de Torres para niños