The Language
Araki is spoken today by about 8 native speakers; it is progressively being replaced by the neighbouring language of Tangoa. The rest of the island's population have a passive knowledge of Araki language, which allows them to understand it, and even make whole phrases and sentences. Nevertheless, a large portion of the Araki vocabulary, as well as idiosyncratic syntactic and phonetic phenomena of the language have been forgotten. Speakers of Araki can also speak the English-based pidgin Bislama; but this lingua franca is mainly used in the two towns of the country, Port-Vila and Luganville, and seldom in rural areas.
Araki was described in 2002 by the linguist Alexandre François.
Read more about this topic: Araki Language
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“Never resist a sentence you like, in which language takes its own pleasure and in which, after having abused it for so long, you are stupefied by its innocence.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“Consensus is usually made possible by vague language and shallow commitments.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)