Language variation and usage across the varieties of North-Central Pentecost, Vanuatu

 2014 Linguistics Seminar Series

Presented by Dr CINDY SCHNEIDER, Linguistics UNE 

12 – 1pm 21st May 2014 

UNE Oorala Lecture Theatre


There are between 6,000 and 7,000 languages in the world but, by some estimates, this figure may be halved by the end of the century (May 2006: 257); some even predict losses of up to 90% (Krauss 1992: 7; Newman 2003: 1; Nettle & Romaine 2000: 6-7). Just as the loss of biological species and sub-species can have unforeseen and devastating effects on the natural world, so the death of languages and dialects can disrupt communities of speakers. The Pacific region is home to 3,000 of the world's languages, and the risk of language and dialect shift there threatens our access to the human knowledge base.

Suru Kavian (SK) is the most divergent of three dialects of Abma, a language spoken in the north-central part of Pentecost Island in Vanuatu (Schneider 2010). With only 250 speakers, SK is small in comparison to neighbouring varieties, and it appears to be on the brink of dialect shift. SK shift has hitherto unstudied parameters which make it a nice test case for other small Pacific varieties in a similar bind: unlike the typical scenario where speakers of a low-status dialect switch to a more dominant and prestigious one (such as in Europe, where speakers of local dialects shift to standard French, German, and so forth), SK speakers are moving not to standard varieties, but to larger local varieties that have no established tradition of writing, and no status as a national or official languages. That is, the varieties being shifted to are not high in prestige, according to the conventional indicators. Similar observations of shift from one non-dominant variety to another have been made on Erromango Island (Crowley 1995: 329) and in the Torres and Banks Islands of Vanuatu (François 2012: 89-90). Thus the type of shift SK appears to be undergoing is representative of scenarios elsewhere in the region.

This seminar reports on current research of linguistic variation across the languages and dialects of North-Central Pentecost Island. We examine examples of language usage, including dialect mixing, by SK speakers. We then consider, in a preliminary way, possible social, demographic and environmental factors that may impact upon SK speaker choices, and how these may contribute to dialect shift.


Crowley, T. (1995). Melanesian Languages: Do they have a future? Oceanic Linguistics 34(2), 327-344.
François, A. (2012). The dynamics of linguistic diversity: egalitarian multilingualism and power imbalance among northern Vanuatu languages. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 214, 85-110.
Krauss, M. (1992). The world's languages in crisis. Language 68(1), 4-10.
May, S. (2006). Language policy and minority rights. In Ricento, T. (ed), An Introduction to Language Policy: Theory and Method. Oxford: Blackwell, 255-272.
Nettle, D. & Romaine, S. (2000). Vanishing Voices: The Extinction of the World's Languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Newman, P. (2003). The endangered languages issue as a hopeless cause In Janse, M. & Tols, S. (eds), Language Death and Language Maintenance. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Schneider, C. (2010). A grammar of Abma: A language of Pentecost Island, Vanuatu. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.