Grammars of the South Pacific

Vanuatu is fertile ground for linguists. Six recent grammars of languages from that country's rich heritage document Austronesian linguistic structures. They also disclose current institutional support for grammar writing for documentary and comparative purposes, as well as local community and national interests that shape grammar production. These grammars, and the now increasingly digitalized and archived data upon which they draw, are models for what is likely to be a final burst of salvage linguistics in the 21st century as many of the world's smaller, unwritten vernaculars lose speakers to other encroaching languages, both local and global.