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Ethnologue > Web version > Country index > Pacific > Vanuatu > Bislama

Bislama

A language of Vanuatu

ISO 639-3: bis

Population	5,000 in Vanuatu (Naito and Tryon 2001). Population total all countries: 6,200.
Region	Also in New Caledonia.
Alternate names	Bichelamar
Dialects	Unlike Tok Pisin [tpi] (Papua New Guinea) and Pijin [pis] (Solomon Islands), there are some French loanwords. Partially intelligible with Pijin [pis] and Tok Pisin [tpi].
Classification	Creole, English-based, Pacific
Language use	Official language. Most in the country understand and use it as lingua franca. Widely used in commerce, government, internal dealings. Language of parliament. Used orally in education.
Language development	Literacy rate in L1: 10%–30%. Literacy rate in L2: 25%–50%. Newspapers. Radio programs. TV. Dictionary. Grammar. Bible: 1998.
Writing system	Latin script.

Also spoken in:

New Caledonia

Language name	Bislama
Population	1,200 in New Caledonia (1982 SIL).
Region	Mainly Noumea.
Language map	New Caledonia
Alternate names	Bichelamar
Comments	All from Vanuatu.

Entries from the SIL Bibliography about this language:

Academic Publications

FRANKLIN, Karl J., author. 1992. Review of: Beach-la-Mar to Bislama: The emergence of a national language in Vanuatu, by Terry Crowley.

STAHL, James L., author. 2000. Review of: Bislama: an introduction to the national language of Vanuatu, by Darrell T. Tryon.

Vernacular Publications

Tok tok long saed blong HIV/AIDS. 2007.