The Pacific
Island nations of the Pacific
Anthropologists' continuing fascination with the Pacific has its source in the many diverse human groups occupying thousands of islands scattered round the world's largest ocean. Estimates range from 20,000 to more than 30,000 islands in the region, some, like New Guinea, covering thousands of square kilometres, others no more than atolls barely rising above the water.
In this region many nation states are archipelagos: to take but three examples, the Kingdom of Tonga in the south west Pacific is made up of over 170 islands, 35 of which are inhabited, likewise Fiji with 109 permanently inhabited islands out of over 330, and Vanuatu which has about 74 populated islands. One of the smallest island countries in the Pacific is Tuvalu) with an area of 26 square kilometres. Derived from tu meaning 'to stand' and valu meaning 'eight', the name denotes a federation of the eight inhabited islands (out of a chain of nine) that extends 580 kilometres across the ocean.
The principal countries of the region are:
- Australia
- Cook Islands
- Federated States of Micronesia
- Fiji
- French Polynesia
- Kiribati
- Marshall Islands
- Nauru
- New Caledonia
- New Zealand
- Niue, Palau
- Papua New Guinea
- Samoa
- Solomon Islands
- Tokelau
- Tonga
- Tuvalu
- Vanuatu
Pacific Rim
The countries of the so-called Pacific Rim do not all border directly on the Pacific Ocean, for the term takes in those countries that have a profound economic and political influence on regional affairs. They include Brunei, China, South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand. Other countries that border the Pacific are Australia, Indonesia, Japan, Canada, the United States, and several of the nations of Central and South America.
Languages of the Pacific
Austronesian
Many of the Pacific languages belong to the family known as Austronesian or Malayo-Polynesian. Austronesia numbers 1244 languages spoken by 300 million people spread throughout the vast region of Oceania: from Madagascar in the far west of the Indian Ocean through Sumatra and the many islands of Indonesia to Easter Island in the eastern Pacific, from New Zealand in the south Pacific to Hawaii and Taiwan in the north. National languages such as Tagalog (Philippines) and Malay are part of the Austronesian family, as are Rotuman, Maori, Tahitian, Tongan, Samoan, Hawaiian – six closely related languages which are thought to have differentiated from a common source in Fiji more than 3000 years ago.
During the past 30 to 50 years there's been a good deal of research into Austronesian languages, but by and large their origin and early history remain unknown and their classification is still controversial. The many structural differences between the Austronesian languages lead linguists to believe that at least 4000 years have passed since they split from their common ancestor.
Papuan
The Papuan languages are so extraordinarily diverse that linguists do not yet know for sure that they have descended from a single ancestral source. The island of New Guinea is home to over 800 languages, most of which are classified as Papuan, many with fewer than 500 speakers, the two most widely spoken being Melpa (with an estimated 130,000 speakers) and Enga (estimated 130,000 speakers).
The lingua franca, Tok Pisin with its 4 million plus speakers is the most widely used of the three official languages of Papua New Guinea (which include Hiri Motu, and English). For 121,000 people Tok Pisin is spoken as a first language.