The « Academy des Langues Kanak » is organizing a conference on the regional languages of Melanesia, within the 4th festival of the arts of Melanesia (September 12-24, New Caledonia).

The festival is welcoming delegations of five countries from this part of Oceania (Fidji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia). The five of them share linguistic ties: the native languages of all these islands are Melanesian languages, which themselves all belong to the “mega” Austronesian language family, geographically the largest language family in the world, along with the Indo-European family.

Only two of the countries invited to the festival, Papua New Guinea (ca. 800 linguistic groups) and the Vanuatu (around a hundred languages) totalize together over 900 languages out of the ca. 6000 languages of the planet!

Thus this festival was the perfect opportunity to set up a conference on languages, in the outstanding Tjibao cultural Center no less.

Each country will be represented by linguists, teachers, authors, etc. who’ll assess the situation of their languages. Encounter between these institutions and the civil society should eventually help to define common subjects of research for future regional projects.

Sorosoro Director Rozenn Milin will be present at the conference; she will deliver her thoughts on the audiovisual documentation of oral languages.

For more on the « Académie des Langues Kanak »: http://www.alk.gouv.nc/portal/page/portal/alk/

« Festival des Arts Mélanésiens » detailed programme here