The Pacific is now well and truly involved in daily encounters with countries, people and states all around the world. There are linguistic consequences of such encounters, often in the shape of threats to the very existence of many small languages, especially as the Pacific becomes increasingly urbanised. In Melanesia, for example, Melanesian Pidgin English varieties are having a considerable impact on local vernaculars, at both the lexical and grammatical levels.

The modern phenomenon of Polynesian and Micronesian diaspora, where there are often more speakers of a given language living outside the homeland than at home, is resulting not only in language change in the new country of residence but also serious language endangerment. Thus, there is now a Samoan dictionary produced for Samoans living in New Zealand, as the Samoan language in New Zealand undergoes different influences than the variety spoken at home in Samoa. Niuean is almost an endangered language, as there are fewer than 2,000 Niueans living on Niue, with roughly 16,000 in New Zealand, many of whom are young Niueans incapable of speaking anything but English.

This melding of Pacific people in the metropolitan areas of Pacific Rim countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Hawai`i and California is not without linguistic consequences for metropolitan languages too, as regional varieties of English (and to a lesser extent French) emerge both in these countries and at home, as globalisation increasingly impacts through electronic media.