To further explain, in
Bislama, the local lingua franca in Vanuatu, there are the terms 'man wan' (possessive individualism/ agency or man one) and 'man pies' (man place) which denotes a person who distributes resources such as cash, food and labour opportunities through his 'place' (clan, family) networks.
Each time, I noticed that the language of the conversation would change from an indigenous language to something they knew I could understand,
Bislama or English.
Among her topics are phonology, noun phrases, sentences without verbs, subordinate clauses, coordination, negation, topic and focus, and Unua and
Bislama.
The Australian Foreign service actually ranks languages by how hard they are for native English speakers, and the five hardest are Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean and Arabic - they give two years' full time learning these languages to get to a working level proficiency, whereas the main language of Vanuatu,
Bislama, took me six weeks.
37 low candidature languages being taught in Australian universities, including Pitjantjatjara, were noted by Muhlhausler (1996) who commented on the scant attention paid to Indigenous languages as well as the absence of (Australian) regionally significant languages such as
Bislama, Tok Pisin and Hiri Motu.
The local language is
Bislama, but English and French are widely used too.
* French l'auto 'the car' is borrowed in
Bislama (the pidgin of Vanuatu) as loto 'car'.
Other tribesmen in nambas surround us as the chief welcomes us in
Bislama, his native tongue.
In Vanuatu, for example, there are three official languages--English, French and
Bislama. In addition, there are 113 indigenous languages that are still actively spoken.
Languages:
Bislama (Pidgin), English (official), French (official), over 100 tribal languages.