Avoiuli
Avoiuli (from Raga 'talk about' and 'draw' or 'paint') is a writing system used by the Turaga indigenous movement on Pentecost Island in Vanuatu. It was devised by Chief Viraleo Boborenvanua over a 14-year period, based on designs found in traditional sand drawings, and intended as a native alternative to the Latin alphabet. It is used mainly for writing in the area's native Raga language, although it can also be used for other languages including Apma, Bislama and English. Features The Avoiuli alphabet comprises characters equivalent to the letters A-Z, decimal numerals and other symbols, including a range of currency symbols representing the livatu and specific items of traditional value such as pigs and dyed mats. Like the Western orthography used to write Raga, it represents the velar nasal ''ng'' and prenasalised consonant ''ngg'' using modified forms of the letters ''n'' and ''g'' respectively, but represents the labiovelar consonants ''bw'', ''mw'' and ''vw'' using ...
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Avoiuli Letters
Avoiuli (from Raga 'talk about' and 'draw' or 'paint') is a writing system used by the Turaga indigenous movement on Pentecost Island in Vanuatu. It was devised by Chief Viraleo Boborenvanua over a 14-year period, based on designs found in traditional sand drawings, and intended as a native alternative to the Latin alphabet. It is used mainly for writing in the area's native Raga language, although it can also be used for other languages including Apma, Bislama and English. Features The Avoiuli alphabet comprises characters equivalent to the letters A-Z, decimal numerals and other symbols, including a range of currency symbols representing the livatu and specific items of traditional value such as pigs and dyed mats. Like the Western orthography used to write Raga, it represents the velar nasal ''ng'' and prenasalised consonant ''ngg'' using modified forms of the letters ''n'' and ''g'' respectively, but represents the labiovelar consonants ''bw'', ''mw'' and ''vw'' usi ...
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Avoiuli Digits
Avoiuli (from Raga 'talk about' and 'draw' or 'paint') is a writing system used by the Turaga indigenous movement on Pentecost Island in Vanuatu. It was devised by Chief Viraleo Boborenvanua over a 14-year period, based on designs found in traditional sand drawings, and intended as a native alternative to the Latin alphabet. It is used mainly for writing in the area's native Raga language, although it can also be used for other languages including Apma, Bislama and English. Features The Avoiuli alphabet comprises characters equivalent to the letters A-Z, decimal numerals and other symbols, including a range of currency symbols representing the livatu and specific items of traditional value such as pigs and dyed mats. Like the Western orthography used to write Raga, it represents the velar nasal ''ng'' and prenasalised consonant ''ngg'' using modified forms of the letters ''n'' and ''g'' respectively, but represents the labiovelar consonants ''bw'', ''mw'' and ''vw'' using ...
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Bislama
Bislama (; ; also known by its earlier French name, ) is an English-based creole language and one of the official languages of Vanuatu. It is the first language of many of the "Urban ni-Vanuatu" (citizens who live in Port Vila and Luganville) and the second language of much of the rest of the country's residents. The lyrics of "Yumi, Yumi, Yumi", the country's national anthem, are composed in Bislama. More than 95% of Bislama words are of English origin, whilst the remainder comprises a few dozen words from French as well as some specific vocabulary inherited from various languages of Vanuatu; though these are essentially limited to flora and fauna terminology. While the influence of these vernacular languages is low on the vocabulary side, it is very high in the morphosyntax. As such, Bislama can be described simply as a language with an English vocabulary and an Oceanic grammar and phonology. History During the period of "blackbirding" in the 1870s and 1880s, hundreds of tho ...
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Boustrophedon
Boustrophedon is a style of writing in which alternate lines of writing are reversed, with letters also written in reverse, mirror-style. This is in contrast to modern European languages, where lines always begin on the same side, usually the left. The original term comes from grc, βουστροφηδόν, ', a composite of , ', "ox"; , ', "turn"; and the adverbial suffix -, -', "like, in the manner of" – that is, "like the ox turns hile plowing. It is mostly seen in ancient manuscripts and other inscriptions. It was a common way of writing on stone in ancient Greece, becoming less and less popular throughout the Hellenistic period. Many ancient scripts, such as Etruscan, Safaitic, and Sabaean, were frequently or even typically written boustrophedon. Reverse boustrophedon The wooden boards and other incised artefacts of Rapa Nui also bear a boustrophedonic script called Rongorongo, which remains undeciphered. In Rongorongo, the text in alternate lines was rotated 18 ...
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Raga Language
Raga (also known as Hano) is the language of northern Pentecost Island in Vanuatu. Like all Vanuatu languages, Raga belongs to the Oceanic subgroup of the Austronesian languages family. In old sources the language is sometimes referred to by the names of villages in which it is spoken, such as Bwatvenua (Qatvenua), Lamalanga, Vunmarama and Loltong. It is the most conservative language of Pentecost Island, having preserved final vowels while also retaining the five-vowel system inherited from Proto-Oceanic, compared to other languages spoken on the island, which have all developed additional vowels in addition to pervasive vowel deletion. With an estimated 6,500 native speakers (in the year 2000), Raga is the second most widely spoken of Pentecost's five native languages (after Apma), and the seventh largest vernacular in Vanuatu as a whole. There are significant communities of Raga speakers on Maewo island and in Port Vila and Luganville as a result of emigration from Pentecost. ...
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Apma Language
Apma (or Abma) is the language of central Pentecost island in Vanuatu. Apma is an Oceanic language (a branch of the Austronesian language family). Within Vanuatu it sits between North Vanuatu and Central Vanuatu languages, and combines features of both groups. With an estimated 7,800 native speakers (in the year 2000), Apma is the most widely spoken of Pentecost's native languages, and the fifth largest vernacular in Vanuatu as a whole. In recent times Apma has spread at the expense of other indigenous languages such as Sowa and Ske. Apma is increasingly mixed with words and expressions from Bislama, Vanuatu's national language. Name of the language Like Pentecost's other languages, Apma is named after the local word for "what" or "something". Locally it is usually referred to simply as "language" or "our language". Many people from other areas of Vanuatu recognise the language by the catchphrase meaning "good" or "OK", or refer informally to its speakers as , an Apma ter ...
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Turaga Nation
The Turaga nation (from ''tu'' "stand" and ''raga'', a tribal name) is an indigenous movement based in northern Pentecost Island, Vanuatu. Its leader is Chief Viraleo Boborenvanua, and it has also been associated with Motarilavoa Hilda Lin̄i. The organisation has its headquarters in the traditional village of Lavatmanggemu on the north-east coast of Pentecost. The Turaga movement promotes the revival of traditional Melanesian customs, modernised in certain respects. In place of the Western economic system, which is seen as a cause of poverty and foreign dependency, the movement promotes the ''kastom'' (custom) economy, based on traditional systems of economic exchange and native forms of currency such as pigs and woven mats. The Turaga movement operates its own bank (called Tangbunia after the giant baskets in which valuables were traditionally stored) at which these items can be deposited, and has devised a unit of currency (the livatu, equal to the value of a fully curved bo ...
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Sand Drawing
Sand drawing (or sandroing in Bislama)"Sandroing"
Vanuatu Cultural Centre is a ni- istic and tradition and practice, recognised by as a

Latin Alphabet
The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the other modern European languages. With modifications, it is also used for other alphabets, such as the Vietnamese alphabet. Its modern repertoire is standardised as the ISO basic Latin alphabet. Etymology The term ''Latin alphabet'' may refer to either the alphabet used to write Latin (as described in this article) or other alphabets based on the Latin script, which is the basic set of letters common to the various alphabets descended from the classical Latin alphabet, such as the English alphabet. These Latin-script alphabets may discard letters, like the Rotokas alphabet, or add new letters, like the Danish and Norwegian alphabets. Letter shapes have evolved over the centuries, including the development in Medieval Latin of lower-case, fo ...
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Tari Bunia Bank
The Tangbunia Bank (widely misreported as ''Tari Bunia'') is a bank run by the Turaga indigenous movement on Pentecost Island in Vanuatu. It is notable for dealing in items of customary wealth such as hand-woven mats, shells or pig tusks rather than currency such as the vatu. Accounts at the bank are reckoned in livatu, a unit equivalent to the value of one fully curved boar's tusk. The Tangbunia Bank has fourteen branches throughout the island, with its headquarters at Lavatmanggemu. The bank's manager is Chief Viraleo Boborenvanua. It was set up in accordance with the national government's support for the indigenous customary economy, in a country where a majority of the population does not participate extensively in a monetary economy. According to the British Broadcasting Corporation, the bank is similar to other banks in that it has "accounts, reserves, cheque books and tight security". The bank is named after the giant baskets in which valuables were traditionally stored. ...
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Penama Province
Penama is one of the six provinces of Vanuatu, located in the northeast of the country and consisting of three major islands: * Ambae (or Aoba) * Maewo * Pentecost The name Penama is derived from the initial letters of PENtecost, Ambae and MAewo. Population It has a population of 30,819 (2009 census) people and an area of 1,198 km2. Its capital is Saratamata Saratamata is the capital of Penama Province of the island country of Vanuatu.Saratamata ca. 150 m

Languages Of Vanuatu
The Republic of Vanuatu has the world's highest linguistic density per capita. For a population of 0.3 million, Vanuatu is home to 138 indigenous Oceanic languages. In addition, modern history has brought new languages, including the country's three official languages: English, French, and Bislama. Even more languages have been brought by recent migrations (e.g. Samoan, Hakka Chinese, Mandarin Chinese). The linguistic situation in Vanuatu Indigenous languages There are over one hundred local languages spread over the archipelago ( listed below), all of them belonging to the Austronesian family of languages. Vanuatu is the country with the highest density of languages per capita in the world: it currently shows an average of about 1,760 speakers for each indigenous language, and went through a historical low of 565;See François ''et al.'' (2015:8-9); and also Crowley (2000:50); François (2012:86). only Papua New Guinea comes close. Some of these languages are very endangere ...
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