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Paama (
Paama language Paamese, or Paama, is the language of the island of Paama in Northern Vanuatu. There is no indigenous term for the language; however linguists have adopted the term ''Paamese'' to refer to it. Both a grammar and a dictionary of Paamese have been ...
: VoumCrowley, Terry. (1982). ''The Paamese Language of Vanuatu. Pacific Linguistics, Series B – No. 87''. Canberra: ANU Printing Services.) is a small island in
Malampa Province Malampa is one of the six provinces of Vanuatu, located in the center of the country. It consists of three main islands: Malakula, Ambrym and Paama, and takes its name from the first syllable of their names. It includes a number of other islands ...
,
Vanuatu Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (french: link=no, République de Vanuatu; bi, Ripablik blong Vanuatu), is an island country located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of no ...
. The island is about 8 km from north to south and only 5 km or so at its widest point. The island is dominated by hills, rising to a height of around 550 m in the north. Paama lies a short distance south of
Ambrym Ambrym is a volcanic island in Malampa Province in the archipelago of Vanuatu. Volcanic activity on the island includes lava lakes in two craters near the summit. Etymology Ambrym (also known as ''Ambrin'', ''"ham rim"'' in the Ranon language ...
, a little further east of
Malakula Malakula Island, also spelled Malekula, is the second-largest island in the nation of Vanuatu, formerly the New Hebrides, in Melanesia, a region of the Pacific Ocean. Location Malakula is separated from the islands of Espiritu Santo and Malo by ...
, about 7 km west of the large active volcano
Lopevi Lopevi (or Lopévi) is an uninhabited island in Malampa Province, Vanuatu. It lies to the southeast of Ambrym and east of Paama. Geography Lopevi consists of the 7-km-wide cone of the active stratovolcano by the same name. It reaches a peak of 14 ...
(Ulvae, in the vernacular (see Crowley 1982), and a short distance north of the island of Epi. During daylight, all of Paama's neighbouring islands are clearly visible from various locations on the island. Indeed, on a clear night the red glow of Ambrym's twin volcanos can be seen clearly from the black sand beach at Liro. The now uninhabited island of Lopevi dominates the view east from the village of Lulep, on the northeast coast of the island. This active volcano is reasonably regular, erupting every two years or so, causing quite serious problems for those living in the villages of Lulep and Luli in the northeast of the island. The
acid In computer science, ACID ( atomicity, consistency, isolation, durability) is a set of properties of database transactions intended to guarantee data validity despite errors, power failures, and other mishaps. In the context of databases, a sequ ...
ic
volcanic ash Volcanic ash consists of fragments of rock, mineral crystals, and volcanic glass, created during volcano, volcanic eruptions and measuring less than 2 mm (0.079 inches) in diameter. The term volcanic ash is also often loosely used t ...
falls onto gardens, ruining crops, and onto the natangura thatched roofs, rotting it.


Population

Today the majority of people living on Paama live in villages close to the coast of the island and make their gardens on the hillsides nearby. Agricultural produce is by and large for subsistence although some is exported for sale in
Port Vila Port Vila (french: Port-Vila), or simply Vila (; french: Vila; bi, Vila ), is the capital and largest city of Vanuatu. It is located on the island of Efate. Its population in the last census (2009) was 44,040, an increase of 35% on the pr ...
(Vanuatu's capital on
Éfaté Efate (french: Éfaté) is an island in the Pacific Ocean which is part of the Shefa Province in Vanuatu. It is also known as Île Vate. Geography It is the most populous (approx. 66,000) island in Vanuatu. Efate's land area of makes it Vanua ...
) and
Luganville Luganville is the second largest city in Vanuatu after the capital Port Vila; it is located on the island of Espiritu Santo and has a population of 18,062 as of the 2020 census. Those on Vanuatu's northern islands who regard Luganville as their bi ...
(on
Espiritu Santo Espiritu Santo (, ; ) is the largest island in the nation of Vanuatu, with an area of and a population of around 40,000 according to the 2009 census. Geography The island belongs to the archipelago of the New Hebrides in the Pacific region o ...
). Liro, the island's council and administrative centre is the most heavily populated village on the island. The council building, standing a hundred or so metres up from the shore is said to have been the house of the Rev. Maurice Frater, the
Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...
missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Tho ...
resident on the island in the early 1900s. Frater arrived on the island in 1900, when outsiders were treated with great hostility, and stayed for 39 years, building 21 churches and converting the majority of the population to Christianity. Today the island's population rests at around 1,600, with the vast majority dwelling on the west coast of the island. However, the number of people claiming to be Paamese is much greater than this. Around 7,000 people living throughout Vanuatu claimed to be Paamese in the 1999
census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses incl ...
. Indeed, Paama has the highest outmigration rate of any of Vanuatu's 83 or so islands


Language

The inhabitants speak the
Paama language Paamese, or Paama, is the language of the island of Paama in Northern Vanuatu. There is no indigenous term for the language; however linguists have adopted the term ''Paamese'' to refer to it. Both a grammar and a dictionary of Paamese have been ...
, termed Paamese by the linguist Terry Crowley, though the residents have no term for the language themselves. It is an
East Vanuatu language The Central Vanuatu languages form a linkage of Southern Oceanic languages spoken in central Vanuatu. Languages Clark (2009) Clark (2009) provides the following classification of the Central Vanuatu languages, divided into geographic areas. Outli ...
, a close cognate of the
Southeast Ambrym language Southeast Ambrym, ''Vatlongos'', or ''Taveak'', is a language of Ambrym Island, Vanuatu. It is closely related to Paamese. References External links * Paama–Ambrym languages Languages of Vanuatu {{SOceanic-lang-stub ...
. However, they are not so close that all speakers of one understand speakers of the other. In addition to speaking Paamese, the majority of Paamese people also speak
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) ...
, one of the three national languages of Vanuatu.Crowley, Terry. (1990). ''Beach-la-Mar to Bislama: The Emergence of a National Language in Vanuatu''. Clarendon Press: Oxford.


Transportation

In the northern part of the island there is the grass strip of
Paama Airport Paama Airport is an airport on Paama island, in the Malampa Province of Vanuatu Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (french: link=no, République de Vanuatu; bi, Ripablik blong Vanuatu), is an island country located in th ...
, based at the village of Tavie. Landing and taking off from this airport is not for the faint-hearted – it is one of the shortest airstrips in the whole of Vanuatu.


References


{{authority control Islands of Vanuatu Malampa Province