Fonds Alexandre François — Vanuatu

The present archival fonds brings together all the field recordings carried out by researcher Alexandre François in Vanuatu (South Pacific), between 1997 and 2011. Those 939 audio recordings document 18 languages, distributed into three linguistic areas: [1]- the Araki language, spoken in the south of Espiritu Santo; [2]- the 15 languages of the Banks islands (Dorig – Koro – Lakon – Lehali – Lemerig – Löyöp – Mota – Mwerlap – Mwesen – Mwotlap – Nume – Olrat – Vera’a – Volow – Vurës); [3]- the two languages of the Torres islands (Lo-Toga and Hiw), in northern Vanuatu. To those 18 languages, one can add the creole Bislama, lingua franca of Vanuatu, which was occasionally used during recordings. Most of these archival resources constitute the first ever documents for languages that are at the risk of disappearing soon.