Abstract

The western half of Espiritu Santo is one of the most remote, culturally diverse, and least linguistically studied areas of Vanuatu. In this article, we focus on the area along the west coast of Santo, a region we call here Western Santo, to report what languages are spoken there and in what context. Much of our data come from statistics and official documents, from the authors’ knowledge about the area, and from the findings of the Western Santo Language Survey, which was launched in 2022. We approach the descriptive task using a language ecosystem model to cover a wide range of social, economic, and environmental factors that may be related to the vitality of languages. Our vitality assessment shows that, despite recent loss of language diversity, most of the extant languages in Western Santo perform very well in some regards, e.g. intergenerational transmission, proportion of L2/non-speakers, and speakers’ attitudes, but very poorly in terms of others, e.g. response to new domains (including education, religion, social media), availability of literacy materials, and amount and quality of language documentation. The institutional attitudes are mixed and/or unclear, but the grassroots potential is stronger. We also offer a discussion of likely future developments, which may impact language vitality, including population growth, improved education and infrastructure, industrial development, higher Internet use, and increased risks associated with natural disasters/climate change. Finally, we propose urgent measures for maintaining and increasing the vitality of Western Santo’s Indigenous languages to ensure the region’s sustainable development.

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