Turks and Caicos Creole, or Caicosian Creole, is an

English-based creole An English-based creole language (often shortened to English creole) is a creole language for which English was the '' lexifier'', meaning that at the time of its formation the vocabulary of English served as the basis for the majority of the cr ...

spoken in the

Turks and Caicos Islands The Turks and Caicos Islands (abbreviated TCI; and ) are a British Overseas Territory consisting of the larger Caicos Islands and smaller Turks Islands, two groups of tropical islands in the Lucayan Archipelago of the Atlantic Ocean and no ...

, a West Indian

British overseas territory The British Overseas Territories (BOTs) or alternatively referred to as the United Kingdom Overseas Territories (UKOTs) are the fourteen dependent territory, territories with a constitutional and historical link with the United Kingdom that, ...

in the

Lucayan Archipelago The Lucayan Archipelago, also known as the Bahamian Archipelago, is an island group comprising the Commonwealth of The Bahamas and the British Overseas Territory of the Turks and Caicos Islands. The archipelago is in the western North Atlant ...

. The Turks and Caicos Island Creole variety has not been thoroughly studied but is a dialect of

Bahamian Creole Bahamian Dialect, also described as Bahamian dialect or simply Bahamian, is an English-based creole language spoken by both Black and White Bahamians, sometimes in slightly different forms. In comparison to many of the English-based dialects ...

. It is also related to Bermudian Creole as the two are reportedly highly

mutually intelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between different but related language varieties in which speakers of the different varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. Mutual intellig ...

. As of 1995, the number of speakers of Turks and Caicos Islands Creole was thought to be around 10,700, although decreasing and endangered. It seems to be shifting to a variety form of

Caribbean English Caribbean English (CE, CarE) is a set of dialects of the English language which are spoken in the Caribbean and most countries on the Caribbean coasts of Central America and South America. Caribbean English is influenced by, but is distinct to ...

, as Turks and Caicos Islands Creole does not have an official status. The use of African sounds and words in Caicosian Creole is similar to Gullah Geechee in South Carolina and Georgia, resembling elements of West African languages in Senegal and Sierra Leone. This is due to enslaved Africans brought to the island form South Carolina and Georgia between 1720–1750. Turks and Caicos Island Creole is also influenced by Jamaican Patwah—and shares many of the same words such as ''Aks'' (Ask), ''Dis'' (This), ''Gyal'' (Girl), and ''Mosi'' (Must be)—due to the fact that the Turks and Caicos Islands were formally a part of

Jamaica Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies. At , it is the third-largest island—after Cuba and Hispaniola—of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, west of Hispaniola (the is ...

for over 114 years (1848–1962), and share a common heritage with Jamaica. Bermudian Creole has impacted Caicosian Creole because the islands were initially settled by Bermudian salt-rakers following British colonization, and were a ''de facto'' part of

Bermuda Bermuda is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. The closest land outside the territory is in the American state of North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. Bermuda is an ...

for over 126 years (1673 - 1799). As of (2019) the number of speakers of Caicosian Creole is approximately 34,000.

Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' is an annual reference publication in print and online that provides statistics and other information on the living languages of the world. It is the world's most comprehensive catalogue of languages. It w ...

report fo
Turks and Caicos Creole English
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Phrases

References

Culture of the Turks and Caicos Islands Languages of the Turks and Caicos Islands English-based pidgins and creoles Creoles of the Caribbean English language in the Caribbean Languages of the United Kingdom Endangered pidgins and creoles Languages of the African diaspora {{TurksCaicos-stub

Phrases

See also

Further reading

References