Kanak people
New Caledonia languages are divided into several groups. The Northern language group is tonal and includes 12 languages: Caac, Cemuhî, Fwâi, Jawe, Kumak, Nemi, Paicî, Pije, Pwaamei, Pwapwa, Yalayu, and Yuaga. Approximately 60,000 residents of New Caledonia speak at least one of the Kanak languages. Most of these languages are only in spoken form. There is no one unified language among the Kanaks; however, the largest group of Kanaks speak Drehu.
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."