Raga is spoken in the north of Pentecost Island in Vanuatu
by about 6,500 people. There are also Raga speakers on Maewo
island and in Port Vila and Luganville. Raga is a member of
the Vanuatu branch of the Southern Oceanic Malayo-Polynesian
languages, and is also known as Hano, or is sometimes referred
to by the names of the villages where it's spoken: Bwatvenua
(Qatvenua), Lamalanga, Vunmarama and Loltong.
Raga has borrowed many words from Vanuatu's national
language, Bislama, though the Turaga indigenous movement has
been trying to find or coin native Raga words to replace
those borrowed from Bislama.
In the late 19th century a number of missionaries, such as
John Coleridge Patteson, Thomas Ulgau and Terry Crowley compiled
grammatical descriptions and vocabulary lists of Raga, and
also translated a few religious texts into the language. More
recently a number of linguists have written papers on Raga,
though there is no complete description of the language.
Members of the Turaga indigenous movement use a script
known as Avoiuli, from the Raga words avoi (talk
about) and uli (draw/paint), which was devised by
Chief Viraleo Boborenvanua and based on traditional sand
drawings. It is used as an alternative to the Latin alphabet
for writing Raga, and can also be used for writing other Vanuatu
languages, such as Apma and Bislama, and for English.
Avoiuli consists of letters, plus numerals and other symbols,
and can be written from left to right or right to left. Words
can be written with a single continuous stroke.
Avoiuli is taught at a school in Lavatmanggemu in
north-eastern Pentecost, and is used for record keeping by
the Tangbunia indigenous bank, which deals with traditional
forms of wealth, such as mats, shells and boar tusks.
If you need to type in many different languages, the Q International Keyboard can help. It enables you to type almost any language that uses the Latin, Cyrillic or Greek alphabets, and is free.
