Languages of Oceania

Native languages of Oceania fall into three major geographic groups:

The large Austronesian language family, with such languages as Malay (Indonesian), Tagalog (Filipino), and Polynesian languages such as Maori and Hawaiian
The Aboriginal Australian languages, including the large Pama–Nyungan family
The Papuan languages of New Guinea and neighbouring islands, including the large Trans–New Guinea family

Contact between Austronesian and Papuan resulted in several instances in mixed languages such as Maisin.

Colonial languages include English in Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, and many other territories; French in New Caledonia and French Polynesia, Portuguese in East Timor, Japanese in the Bonin Islands, Spanish on Easter Island.

There are also Creoles formed from the interaction of Malay or the colonial languages with indigenous languages, such as Tok Pisin, Bislama, Chavacano, various Malay trade and creole languages, Hawaiian Pidgin, Norfuk, and Pitkern.

Finally, immigrants brought their own languages, such as Mandarin, Italian, Arabic, Cantonese, Greek and others in Australia,^[1] or Fiji Hindi in Fiji.

References

^ http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/2071.0main+features902012-2013

Links to related articles

Languages of Oceania

Sovereign states	Australia East Timor Fiji Kiribati Marshall Islands Federated States of Micronesia Nauru New Zealand Palau Papua New Guinea Samoa Solomon Islands Tonga Tuvalu Vanuatu

Associated states of New Zealand	Cook Islands Niue

Dependencies and other territories	American Samoa Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Easter Island French Polynesia Guam Hawaii New Caledonia Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Pitcairn Islands Tokelau Wallis and Futuna

Countries and languages lists

Countries

By languages

Spoken	Countries by spoken languages

Official	Countries by the number of recognized official languages Arabic Chinese English French German Portuguese Romanian Russian Spanish

Endonyms

Countries and capitals in native languages

Exonyms

Languages

By continent	Africa Americas North South Asia East South Europe Oceania

By country	Official languages by state List of languages without official status Countries by the number of recognized official languages Languages by the number of countries in which they are recognized as an official language Most widely spoken languages (by number of countries)

By population	By number of native speakers Languages in censuses

By family	Language families

Language-based geopolitical organizations	Arab League (Arabic) Dutch Language Union (Dutch) Commonwealth of Nations (English) Francophonie (French) Community of Portuguese Language Countries (Portuguese) Países Africanos de Língua Oficial Portuguesa (Portuguese) Latin Union (Romance) Turkic Council (Turkic) (Turkic)

See also	Lists of languages Category:Languages

Categories

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Languages of Oceania