Torres Strait English (called by its speakers T.I. English) is a

dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that is ...

of the

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the ...

spoken by the people of various backgrounds (indigenous Torres Strait, Malay, Filipino, European, Japanese, etc.) born and raised on

Thursday Island Thursday Island, colloquially known as TI, or in the Kawrareg dialect, Waiben or Waibene, is an island of the Torres Strait Islands, an archipelago of at least 274 small islands in the Torres Strait. TI is located approximately north of Cape ...

and neighbouring islands in Torres Strait, North

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , establishe ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

. It is distinct from Torres Strait Creole, though most locals speak both the creole and English. Quite a few locals are also speakers of General Australian English. Its main phonological characteristic is the retention of English and where Australian English has and (for example, wheel rather than , fool rather than ), while where grammar and the like are concerned, Torres Strait English shows a certain amount of post-Creole characteristics, such as the phrase You for djective'' (e.g. You for style!) for the English You look/are really djective'' (You are a real show-off!, alt. You are real cool!), and the almost mandatory use of second personal pronouns in the imperative. Other characteristics of T.I. English follow general non-standard dialects of English such as the use of ''done'' for ''did'', ''run'' for ''ran'', ''come'' for ''came'' (i.e. a four-way verb system of present-past-infinitive—ing-form for all verbs), and ''oncet'' for ''once''. This is a non-rhotic accent, like Australian and New Zealand dialects. T.I. English is not a post-creole form, but rather an independent development from the English of the early European settlers, most of whom were from various parts of the world. Relatively few were native-born White Australians. The input dialects were British of various types including Irish, Jamaican and others. Substratum languages include Malay, Japanese, Chinese, Jamaican Creole, Samoan, Brokan and so on.

Further reading