Introduction

On ten of the 18 inhabited islands of Torres Strait, lying between Cape York Peninsula and the mainland of Papua New Guinea, and in the Cape York communities of Bamaga and Seisia, where Torres Strait Islanders predominate, the traditional languages are being or have been replaced by an English-based creole. Its speakers call this language Broken (from ‘Broken English’), Pizin (from ‘Pidgin English’), Big Thap (‘Big Piece’) or, among some younger speakers, Blaikman (‘Blackfellow’) or Ailan Tok (‘Island Talk’), but it is never called Langgus, a name reserved for the indigenous languages and English. Here I shall refer to it as Torres Strait Creole (TSC).

Today, the children of Erub, Hammond Island, Masig, Mer, Moa, Purma, Thursday Island, Ugar, Waraber and Yam (see map 11.1) speak TSC as their first language, although in some communities the children can still understand their traditional language. On Masig, Mer, Moa, Purma and Waraber only elderly speakers of the traditional languages remain. The creole has been the first language of the majority of inhabitants of Erub, Ugar and St Paul's Community, Moa, for four generations.

The number of first-language speakers of the creole in the Torres Strait islands and in the Cape York settlement of Bamaga is probably around 3,000 out of a total Islander population of about 4,000.