Turks and Caicos 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 cre ...

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 n ...

, a

West Indian A West Indian is a native or inhabitant of the West Indies (the Antilles and the Lucayan Archipelago). For more than 100 years the words ''West Indian'' specifically described natives of the West Indies, but by 1661 Europeans had begun to use it ...

British overseas territory The British Overseas Territories (BOTs), also known as the United Kingdom Overseas Territories (UKOTs), are fourteen dependent territory, territories with a constitutional and historical link with the United Kingdom. They are the last remna ...

in the

Lucayan Archipelago The Lucayan Archipelago (named for the original native Lucayan people), also known as the Bahama Archipelago, is an island group comprising the Commonwealth of The Bahamas and the British Overseas Territory of the Turks and Caicos Islands. The a ...

. The Turks and Caicos Island Creole variety has not been thoroughly studied but may be directly related to

Bahamian Creole Bahamianese, also described as the Bahamian dialect, is spoken by both Black and white Bahamians, although in slightly different forms. Bahamian dialect also tends to be more prevalent in certain areas of the Bahamas. Islands that were settle ...

as one of its dialects as the two are reportedly highly

mutually intelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an ...

. As of 1995, the number of speakers of Turks and Caicos Islands Creole is around 10,700,

Ethnologue ''Ethnologue: Languages of the World'' (stylized as ''Ethnoloɠue'') 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 comprehensiv ...

report fo
Turks and Caicos Creole English
/ref> 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 Liberia, most countries on the Caribbean coast of Central America, and Guyana and Suriname on the coast of South America. Carib ...

. Turks and Caicos Islands Creole does not have an official status.

Phrases

References

* Turks and Caicos Islands culture Languages of the Turks and Caicos Islands English-based pidgins and creoles Languages of the Caribbean Languages of the United Kingdom Endangered pidgins and creoles Languages of the African diaspora {{TurksCaicos-stub