History
Records of pidgin English being used in Torres Strait exist from as early as the 1840s (e.g. Moore 1979), and therefore Torres Strait Creole may very well be as old as, if not older, than its sister languages, and not a descendant of any of these. The main importers of the pidgin were British, Irish and other sailors, many of whom were South Sea Islanders, both Melanesian and Polynesian, as well as Island South-East Asians, Jamaicans, Cantonese Chinese, Japanese, and others. Therefore, Brokan has various characteristics of these different types of Pidgin, the main ones being Singapore Pidgin, Pacific Pidgin and Jamaican Creole. It may have creolised quite early (pre-1900) on Darnley Island, and somewhat later (post-1910) at St Pauls on Moa and on Yorke Island in the Central Islands. Creolisation is post-1960s elsewhere.
The Papuan dialect was replaced by Hiri Motu in many parts of its former territory, and now also by Tok Pisin.
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