Indigenous languages There are over one hundred local languages spread over the archipelago (
listed below), all of them belonging to the
Austronesian family of languages. Vanuatu is the country with the highest density of languages per capita in the world: it currently shows an average of about 1,760 speakers for each indigenous language, and went through a historical low of 565;
Bislama .
Bislama, a
creole language derived from English, similar to
Tok Pisin of
Papua New Guinea and other nearby creoles, is the first language of many urban
ni-Vanuatu, that is, the residents of
Port Vila and
Luganville; it is the most common
second language elsewhere in the Vanuatu islands. In recent years, the use of Bislama as a first language has considerably encroached on indigenous languages, whose use in the population has receded from 73.1 to 63.2 percent between 1999 and 2009. Out of the three official languages, Bislama is the most spoken in Vanuatu, followed by English, and lastly French.
English and French From the times when Vanuatu was a
British-French condominium, there is still an unofficial separation line between regions where English or French are taught at school. According to
Ethnologue, English is the first language of 6,000 people (2% of the population) and it is spoken as a second language by 120,000 people (40%). French is the first language of 1,800 people (1%) and is spoken as a second language by 87,000 people (29%). The majority of the country's population (63.2% in 2009) speak an indigenous language as their first language, with Bislama as a second language. English and French are generally spoken as third languages, in spite of their official status. ==List of Vanuatu’s indigenous languages==