Culture of Tanna

m 1858.His wife and small child died of malaria early in his mission and he developed paranoid tendencies, one of which was to carry an unloaded firearm. He was driven off the island in the early 1860s and organized a naval bombardment of the Port Resolution area at this time. As a result he was restationed to the neighbouring Polynesian island of Aniwa.

There are three main languages spoken on Tanna:the southern language of Kwamera,the South-Western language adjacent to the slopes of Tokosmera, of which there are many dialects spoken by very small groupings,constitute two of the languages. The remaining majority of Tanna islanders speak four dialects, being North Tanna in the northwest, Lénakel in the west-central area near Lénakel,and the middle bush dialect in the central plateau of the island, which is very close to Lenakel Whitesands in the northeast near White sands. These are generally grouped into the Tanna languages family, which is a subgroup of the South Vanuatu languages, an Austronesian language branch. According to Ethnologue, each is spoken by a few thousand, and Lénakel, with 8,000 speakers, is one of the dialects of Vanuatu with the most speakers. Many people on Tanna also speak