Kiai language
Encyclopedia
The Kiai language is a vernacular
of a native people in the highlands of the central Espiritu Santo Island
, Sanma Province
, Republic of Vanuatu
.
Vernacular
A vernacular is the native language or native dialect of a specific population, as opposed to a language of wider communication that is not native to the population, such as a national language or lingua franca.- Etymology :The term is not a recent one...
of a native people in the highlands of the central Espiritu Santo Island
Espiritu Santo
Espiritu Santo is the largest island in the nation of Vanuatu, with an area of . It belongs to the archipelago of the New Hebrides in the Pacific region of Melanesia. It is in the Sanma Province of Vanuatu....
, Sanma Province
Sanma Province
Sanma is a province located in the Northern part of the nation of Vanuatu, occupying the nation's largest island, Espiritu Santo, which is located approximately 2,500 km northeast of Sydney, Australia. The name Sanma is derived from the initial letters of the main islands of Santo and Malo...
, Republic of Vanuatu
Vanuatu
Vanuatu , officially the Republic of Vanuatu , is an island nation located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is some east of northern Australia, northeast of New Caledonia, west of Fiji, and southeast of the Solomon Islands, near New Guinea.Vanuatu was...
.
Name variants
Another name is Fortsenal. The speakers call their language na vara kiai. Fortsenal (Vorozenale) is one of the villages where the speakers live.External references
- Vara Kiai: a Kiai wordlist / Tomas Ludvigson, Auckland [N.Z.] : Dept. of Anthropology, University of Auckland, 1989
- Crowley, TerryTerry Crowley (linguist)Terry Crowley was a linguist specializing in Oceanic languages as well as Bislama, the English-lexified Creole recognized as a national language in Vanuatu. From 1991 till his death he was a professor at the University of Waikato in New Zealand...
. 2000. The Language Situation in Vanuatu.