The 800 languages of Papua New Guinea

Some languages are like cousins. They share many words.

In Papua New Guinea, some language families live by the sea and on islands. Others live up in the mountains.

Languages that come from the same ancestor language form a family, like cousins in a family tree. Papua New Guinea's languages belong to two very different groups. Austronesian languages are spoken mostly along the coasts and on the islands. Papuan languages, spoken by most people, are found mainly in the interior.

Many of these languages have small groups of speakers. A few are larger: in the Highlands, Engan, Melpa and Kuman each have more than 100,000 speakers.

Britannica divides the indigenous languages into two radically different groups. About 200 related Austronesian languages, including those classified as Melanesian, are spoken mostly in coastal regions and offshore islands such as the Trobriands and Buka. About 550 non-Austronesian, or Papuan, languages are spoken mainly in the interior by the great majority of the population; most have small speech communities, the largest being Engan, Melpa and Kuman in the Highlands, each with more than 100,000 speakers.

Ethnologue does not treat these Papuan languages as one family: it sorts the country's indigenous languages into more than 25 families and isolates, led by Trans-New Guinea (368 languages) and Austronesian (238), then Torricelli (57), Sepik (54) and Ramu-Lower Sepik (32), with 7 language isolates that have no known relatives. Its Austronesian count is higher than Britannica's rounded figure, another sign that catalogs classify and count differently.

How do people talk if they speak different languages?

Many learn a shared language called Tok Pisin. They use it at the market, at work and in town. Then everyone can understand each other.

When people who speak different languages meet, they need a shared one. A shared language like this is called a lingua franca. In Papua New Guinea, the most widely spoken language in everyday life is Tok Pisin.

Tok Pisin is a creole: a language that grew from several languages mixing. It mixes grammar from local languages with some German and, more and more, English. Most people who use it speak it as a second language. Tok Pisin is an official language, and so is English, the main language of government and business.

Britannica names Tok Pisin ("Pidgin Language," also called Melanesian Pidgin or Neo-Melanesian) the most widely spoken language in most everyday contexts and an effective lingua franca amid so many tongues. It is a creole combining grammatical elements of indigenous languages, some German and, increasingly, English. Ethnologue classes it as an official national language and an English-based creole, used primarily as a second language and used as a language of instruction in education.

Two other languages of wider communication matter too. Hiri Motu, a Motu-based pidgin, began as a simplified trading language of the people around what became Port Moresby, and Ethnologue says it is used only as a second language. English is the main language of government and commerce. Britannica observes that the official languages all reflect the country's colonial history. Ethnologue also lists Papua New Guinean Sign Language among the country's languages.

Some children start school in their own home language.

Many also learn Tok Pisin and English.

Papua New Guinea's Constitution of 1975 encourages everyone to learn to read and write in Tok Pisin, Hiri Motu or English, and in their "tok ples," the language of their own community.

For years, many young children began school in their community's language. According to UNESCO, more than 400 local languages have been taught in elementary schools, using writing systems that communities developed. In some places, village preschools called Viles Tok Ples Priskuls teach in local languages. In 2012 the Prime Minister announced that English would become the only language of teaching in elementary schools from 2013.

Article 2.11 of the 1975 Constitution encourages universal literacy in Pisin, Hiri Motu or English and in "tok ples" or "ita eda tano gado," terms for vernacular languages (UNESCO GEM Report profile, 2021). Policy has allowed vernaculars in grades 1 and 2 where needed. Since the new education system was rolled out in the second half of the 1990s, non-government organizations, churches and universities have supported vernacular teaching by developing alphabets, and over the years more than 400 vernacular languages have been taught in elementary schools. Viles Tok Ples Priskuls, community pre-primary schools in local languages, were officially recognized by the province in the 1980s.

Policy has shifted, though: in 2012 the Prime Minister announced that English would become the only medium of instruction in elementary education from the 2013 school year. Ethnologue's 2026 country profile still records 23 indigenous languages used as languages of instruction in formal education, and Tok Pisin as a language of instruction. The number of languages used in classrooms has changed over time.

Most of Papua New Guinea's languages are spoken by children at home.

But some languages have fewer children learning them. People have made alphabets so local languages can be written.

Ethnologue checks how strong each language is. For Papua New Guinea in 2026, it lists 25 languages used by schools, government or other institutions, and 501 that are stable, meaning children still learn them at home.

It lists 314 languages as endangered, which means it is no longer normal for children to learn them, and 12 that are no longer spoken at all. To help local languages, communities, churches and universities have created alphabets so the languages can be written down and taught in schools.

Ethnologue groups its Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (EGIDS) into four summary levels. For Papua New Guinea's indigenous languages in 2026 it counts 25 institutional (used and sustained by institutions beyond home and community), 501 stable (not sustained by formal institutions, but still the norm for children to learn at home), 314 endangered (no longer the norm for children to learn) and 12 extinct. The living total, 25 + 501 + 314, is the 840 in the headline figure.

In other words, well over half of the country's languages are still passed to children at home, while more than a third are no longer reliably passed on. Ethnologue's summary levels turn on whether children are still learning a language at home. Vernacular literacy has been supported by communities, non-government organizations, churches and universities, which have developed alphabets for local languages since the second half of the 1990s (UNESCO GEM Report profile, 2021).