Ni-Vanuatu (informally abbreviated Ni-Van) is a large group of closely related Melanesian ethnic groups native to the island country of Vanuatu. As such, Ni-Vanuatu are a mixed ethnolinguistic group with a shared ethnogenesis that speak a multitude of languages. Ni-Vanuatu or Ni-Van is usually restricted to the indigenous population of Vanuatu. It contrasts with the demonym Vanuatuan, which in principle refers to any citizen of Vanuatu, regardless of their origin or ethnicity. (The form Vanuatuan is in fact rarely used in English, and is regarded as incorrect by some authors and style guides.) Indigenous people of Vanuatu have English and French influences due to the history of colonialism from the British and French, which leads to the main languages of English, Bislama and French being spoken. The cultural aspects of Ni-Vanuatu society have been instilled on the indigenous community and are expressed through clothing, rituals, ceremonies, music, performing and fine arts, and cuisine. The spiritual ties Ni-Vanuatu have with their land and ancestors are conveyed through these traditions and some of these remaining artefacts have been preserved and displayed in galleries of Vanuatu. Etymology Ni-Vanuatu is a recent coinage. It combines the name of the country (Vanuatu, etymologically "land that stands [by itself]", i.e. ‘independent country’) with a particle ni, which encodes the genitive in indigenous languages such as North Efate similar to "of" in English. Etymologically, the particle descends from Proto-Oceanic, Proto-Malayo-Polynesian and Proto-Austronesian *ni. The word Ni-Vanuatu thus simply means "of Vanuatu". The Bislama dictionary defines Ni-Vanuatu as a "Vanuatu citizen of Melanesian descent but not limited to". The term is mostly used in English and French, and is rarely used in Bislama, the country's lingua franca. The term is never used in the indigenous languages of the archipelago. The form Ni-Van is a colloquial abbreviation of Ni-Vanuatu. This form was pejorative in its original usage in the 1980s by Anglophone European expatriates, similar to its French equivalent , but according to New Zealand linguist Terry Crowley, by the 2000s the term Ni-Van saw increasing usage among Ni-Vanuatu. History The indigenous population of Vanuatu The first inhabitants of Vanuatu were Austronesian people, carriers of the Lapita culture, who settled the archipelago about 1200-1300BC. They were later followed by Melanesians around 500BC. European settlement European explorers discovered Vanuatu in 1606 by Captain Pedro Gernandez De Quiros, however settlement did not happen until Captain James Cook charted the islands and