Xârâcùù
Xârâcùù, or Kanala, is an Oceanic language spoken in New Caledonia. It has about 5,000 speakers. Xârâcùù is most commonly spoken in the south Central area of New Caledonia in and around the city of Canala and the municipalities of Canala, Thio, and Boulouparis. Xarâcùù has a strict SVO sentence structure with few exceptions. Efforts to determine how the language evolved to the present has been met with difficulty due to Xârâcùù's lack of reflexive markers in established Proto-Oceanic forms. Xârâcùù has been taught since 1980 at the primary level in the popular Kanak school (EPK or Ecole Populaire Kanak) Canala, only establishment of its kind still existing in 2013, the students can then join public education. The language is also offered at the private Catholic college Francis Rouge-Thio and public college Canala.
Indians in New Caledonia
New Caledonia has several descendants of Tamils, whose parents intermarried with the local population already in the last century. New Caledonia requires a special study since a large number of Tamils went there as labourers and a report in a book published about 1919 states that of the Chinese, Indians and Javanese who colonised new Caledonia, the Indians gave satisfaction. In Tahiti in August 1967, were found about twenty families who had descended from Tamils. Neither the parents nor the children had any knowledge of their ancestry, but the parents remembered their own parents and how when their parents and Indian friends met they spoke 'la langue' and often sang and cried remembering their homeland. The family name was the only clue to their Indian origin e.g. Pavalacoddy, Mariasoosay, Rayappan, Saminathan, Thivy, Veerasamy."