The island state of Vanuatu in the South Pacific Ocean has a total area of 12,189 square kilometres and a current population of about 307,000.
One of the characteristics of this archipelago is that 113 indigenous languages are spoken and only Papua New Guinea has a comparable language density. The Araki language, for example, is spoken by only eight people.
Apart from numerous dialects, the official languages of Vanuatu are English, French and Bislama, a Creole language derived from English and which is the national language.
The island state of Vanuatu, in the South Pacific Ocean, has a total area of 12,189 square kilometers and a current population of about 307,000.
One of the characteristics of this archipelago is that 113 indigenous languages are spoken, and only Papua New Guinea has a language density comparable to this. The araki language, for example, is spoken by only eight people.
Aside from numerous dialects, the official languages of Vanuatu are English, French, and Bislama, which is a Creole language derived from English and is the national language.
The language density of Vanuatu is at risk due to rising seas, which could push the population to migrate elsewhere. Currently, it is estimated that one language is spoken in the archipelago for every 111 square kilometers.
Most of the people living in Vanuatu engage in subsistence or small-scale agriculture, growing mainly coconuts or other products for export. The main product, however, is copra, followed by timber, cattle and cocoa.