Torres Strait Island languages

Sydney Ray's "Linguistics"[2] and Rod Mitchell's "Ngalmun Lagaw Yangukudu"[3] are the main descriptions of the language.

Ray contains a vocabulary list of both Mabuiag (as called by the Cambridge Expedition) and Meriam Mìr.

In 2001 and 2003, Ron Edwards published the Torres Strait Languages vocabularies of Sydney H. Ray.

The dictionaries can only be used in conjunction with knowledgeable native speakers to point out errors and corrections.

It is probably the case that Meriam Mìr settlers 'overlaid' Kalaw lagaw ya speakers on the Eastern islands (these non-Meriam people who have always been resident on the Eastern Islands are called Nog Le 'Common People', Lawrie).

[citation needed] The third language of the Torres Straits is a creole that developed from Torres Strait Pidgin English, the earliest records of which date to the mid 1800s, though creolisation started in the 1880s at the earliest.