ABSTRACT
This article of faith is contradicted by most written accounts of the linguistic situation on the island. Capell (n.d.: 5), for example, says 'there are, however, no records of dialect variation on any large scale. In [Inglis' 1882] Dictionary, a few words ... are entered as "bush" or "inland" words', while Ray (1926: 138) says that Inglis, in a letter to him, 'definitely stated that there were no dialects in Aneityum'. Tryon (1972: 67) does say that 'it was reported that the former language of Anauwonse, on the northern side of the island, was different from modern Aneityumese. However, this village has been abandoned for some time.' But he goes on to state that 'lexical items remembered from the "old language" suggest strongly that it was only dialectally different from the present Aneityumese language.'
