Many languages are indigenous to Oceania; they belong to several families. The Austronesian

Austronesian languages

The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people. It is on par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic and Uralic as one of the...

 family is the most common, found throughout many Pacific Islands, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.

Australia is home to many diverse families of indigenous languages

Languages of Australia

Although Australia has no official language, it is largely monolingual with English being the de facto national language. Australian English has a distinctive accent and vocabulary. According to the 2001 census, English is the only language spoken in the home for around 80% of the population...

:

• Pama–Nyungan languages
• Gunwinyguan languages
  Gunwinyguan languages
  The Gunwinyguan languages form the second largest family of Australian Aboriginal languages. They are spoken in Arnhem Land in northern Australia. The most populous language is Gunwinygu, with some 1500 speakers....
  
  
• Macro-Pama–Nyungan languages
• Southwest Pama–Nyungan languages
• Bunaban languages (2 languages in two branches)
• Daly languages
  Daly languages
  The Daly languages are proposed to be the third largest family of Indigenous Australian languages . They are spoken within the vicinity of the Daly River in the Northern Territory....
  
   (11-19 languages in four branches, including Murrinh-Patha
  Murrinh-patha language
  Murrinh-patha , sometimes also called Garama, is an Australian Aboriginal language spoken by over 1,500 people, most of whom live in Wadeye in the Northern Territory, where it is the dominant language of the community...
  
  )
• Limilngan languages
  Limilngan languages
  The Limilngan languages are a small family of Australian Aboriginal languages spoken in northern Australia. There are only two languages in this group, Limilngan and Wulna, which as of 1981 had only three and one speakers, respectively, and which may now be extinct.-See also:* Australia* Aboriginal...
  
   (2 languages, extinct?)
• Djeragan languages (3-5 languages in two branches)
• Nyulnyulan languages
  Nyulnyulan languages
  The Nyulnyulan languages are a small family of closely related Australian Aboriginal languages spoken in northern Australia.The languages form two branches established on the basis of lexical and morphological innovation....
  
   (4-8 languages in one branch)
• Wororan languages (7-12 languages in three branches)

• Indo-Pacific languages
  Indo-Pacific languages
  Indo-Pacific is a hypothetical language macrofamily proposed in 1971 by Joseph Greenberg. Supporters of Indo-Pacific see it as an extremely ancient and internally diverse family...
  
  
  • Andaman languages
  • Languages of Papua New Guinea
    Languages of Papua New Guinea
    The languages of Papua New Guinea today number over 850, making it the most linguistically diverse place on earth. Its official languages are Tok Pisin, English and Hiri Motu...
    
    
  • Tasmanian languages
    Tasmanian languages
    The Tasmanian languages, or Palawa languages, were the languages indigenous to the island of Tasmania. Based on short wordlists, it appears that there were anywhere from five to sixteen languages on Tasmania....
    
    

Also, the languages of European settlers and colonial powers are common in the region, such as English in Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 and New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

, Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

 in Easter Island

Easter Island

Easter Island is a Polynesian island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian triangle. A special territory of Chile that was annexed in 1888, Easter Island is famous for its 887 extant monumental statues, called moai, created by the early Rapanui people...

, and French in New Caledonia

New Caledonia

New Caledonia is a special collectivity of France located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, east of Australia and about from Metropolitan France. The archipelago, part of the Melanesia subregion, includes the main island of Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of...

, etc.

There are also creoles

Creole language

A creole language, or simply a creole, is a stable natural language developed from the mixing of parent languages; creoles differ from pidgins in that they have been nativized by children as their primary language, making them have features of natural languages that are normally missing from...

 formed from the interaction of the European and indigenous languages, such as Tok Pisin

Tok Pisin

Tok Pisin is a creole spoken throughout Papua New Guinea. It is an official language of Papua New Guinea and the most widely used language in that country...

, Hawaiian Pidgin

Hawaiian Pidgin

Hawaii Pidgin English, Hawaii Creole English, HCE, or simply Pidgin, is a creole language based in part on English used by many "local" residents of Hawaii. Although English and Hawaiian are the co-official languages of the state of Hawaii, Pidgin is used by many Hawaii residents in everyday...

, Norfuk and Pitkern

Pitkern

Pitkern is a creole language based on an 18th century dialect of English and Tahitian. It is a primary language of Pitcairn Island with fewer than 100 speakers worldwide. However, the closely related Norfuk language has a few thousand native speakers...

.

See also

• List of extinct languages of Oceania