Introduction

Nalik is an Austronesian Oceanic language spoken in a band across New Ireland in the Tikana Local Level Government area of Kavieng District in northern New Ireland, Papua New Guinea.
It is closely related to the other Tungag-Nalik languages to its north (Lakurumau, Kara, Tiang, Tigak, and Tungag), less closely related to the other New Ireland languages (which includes the Kuanua language of the Tolai people of East New Britain), and not genetically related to the non-Austronesian Kuot language, which neighbours it to the south.
There has been extensive migration of other people into the Nalik area and of Nalik people to other parts of Papua New Guinea and overseas.
All of the estimated 8780 Nalik people are fluent in Tok Pisin, which has become the dominant language for many, and almost all have at least a passive knowledge of basic English.
Many ethnic Nalik children no longer learn Nalik or develop only semi-fluency in the language, and higher registers of the language are being lost.
There is almost universal adult literacy and an orthography has existed for the language since 1990.

These pages are maintained by Craig Alan Volker, Adjunct Professor in the Language and Culture Research Centre, The Cairns Institute, James Cook University. I am particularly interested in the documentation of Nalik and Tok Pisin and I divide my time between my homes in Madina Village, New Ireland Province, Papua New Guinea and Coimbra, Portugal.