Darrell Tryon

Darrell T. Tryon (20 July 1942 – 15 May 2013) was a New Zealand-born linguist, academic, and specialist in Austronesian languages. Specifically, Tryon specialised in the study of the languages of the Pacific Islands, particularly Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, and the French-speaking Pacific.

From 1970 to 1971, Tryon completed the first systematic study of the languages of Vanuatu, known at the time as the New Hebrides. His study, which collected a list of vocabulary words from communities throughout the islands, determined that there were more than one hundred distinct languages in Vanuatu. Tryon determined that the modern, indigenous languages of Vanuatu are part of Austronesian language family.

Tryon began to study the languages of the Solomon Islands beginning in 1978. He was also authored works on the pidgin and creole languages of the Pacific Islands, including Pijin of the Solomon Islands and Bislama of Vanuatu.

Tryon was born on 20 July 1942, in New Zealand. He studied at the University of Canterbury, where he completed a thesis on the indigenous languages of the Loyalty Islands, an archipelago of New Caledonia. He achieved fluency in French as a student and developed a fascination with the culture and history of French regions of the South Pacific.

He moved to Australia during the mid-1960s, where he taught at Australian National University.

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