The New Georgia Islands are part of the Western Province of Solomon Islands. They are located to the northwest of Guadalcanal. The larger islands are mountainous and covered in rain forest. The main islands are New Georgia, Vella Lavella, Kolombangara, Ghizo, Vangunu, Rendova and Tetepare. They are surrounded by coral reefs and include the Marovo Lagoon.
New Georgia, with an area of 2,037 km2 (786 sq mi), is the largest of the islands in Western Province, Solomon Islands, and the 203rd-largest island in the world. Since July 1978, the island has been part of the independent state of Solomon Islands.
The approximately 450 Oceanic languages are a branch of the Austronesian languages. The area occupied by speakers of these languages includes Polynesia, as well as much of Melanesia and Micronesia. Though covering a vast area, Oceanic languages are spoken by only two million people. The largest individual Oceanic languages are Eastern Fijian with over 600,000 speakers, and Samoan with an estimated 400,000 speakers. The Gilbertese (Kiribati), Tongan, Tahitian, Māori and Tolai languages each have over 100,000 speakers. The common ancestor which is reconstructed for this group of languages is called Proto-Oceanic.
The family of Southeast Solomonic languages forms a branch of the Oceanic languages. It consists of some 26 languages covering the Eastern Solomon Islands, from the tip of Santa Isabel to Makira. It is defined by the merger of Proto-Oceanic *l and *R. The fact that there is little diversity amongst these languages, compared to groups of similar size in Melanesia, suggests that they dispersed in the relatively recent past. Bugotu, Gela and "supposedly" Lengo are three of the most conservative languages.
The Meso-Melanesian languages are a linkage of Oceanic languages spoken in the large Melanesian islands of New Ireland and the Solomon Islands east of New Guinea. Bali is one of the most conservative languages.
The Huon Gulf languages are Western Oceanic languages spoken primarily in Morobe Province of Papua New Guinea. They may form a group of the North New Guinea languages, perhaps within the Ngero–Vitiaz branch of that family.
Western Province is the largest of the nine provinces of Solomon Islands. The area is renowned for its beautiful tropical islands, excellent diving and snorkelling, coral reefs and World War II wrecks, ecotourism lodges, and head-hunting shrines. The province contains many small lagoons and most of the country's tourist trade outside Honiara.
The Solomon Sea is a sea located within the Pacific Ocean. It lies between Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands. Many major battles were fought there during World War II.
The North Solomon Islands form a geographical area covering the more northerly group of islands in the Solomon Islands archipelago and includes Bougainville and Buka Islands, Choiseul, Santa Isabel, the Shortland Islands and Ontong Java Atoll. In 1885 Germany declared a protectorate over these islands forming the German Solomon Islands Protectorate. With the exception of Bougainville and Buka, these were transferred to the British Solomon Islands Protectorate in 1900. Bougainville and Buka continued under German administration until the outset of World War I, when they were transferred to Australia, and after the war, were formally passed to Australian jurisdiction under a League of Nations mandate.
The Southern Oceanic languages are a linkage of Oceanic languages spoken in Vanuatu and New Caledonia. It was proposed by John Lynch in 1995 and supported by later studies. It appears to be a linkage rather than a language family with a clearly defined internal nested structure.
Santa Isabel is the largest island in Isabel Province, Solomon Islands. It is also the longest island, with the third largest surface area, in the country.
The Central Solomon languages are the four Papuan languages spoken in the state of Solomon Islands.
Duke is an Oceanic language now spoken by about 3,000 people on Kolombangara island, Solomon Islands. Duke is an exonymic name. Endonymic names are Dughore (Ndughore) and Kolei. Dughore is also a name for an area in southwest Kolombangara, Kolei is the general bilateral address term specific to Nduke. A more recent alternative name is 'Kolombangara'.
The white-winged fantail or Cockerell's fantail, is a species of bird in the family Rhipiduridae. It is found in the Solomon Islands apart from the island of Malaita in the southeast of the archipelago. The white-gorgeted fantail was formerly considered as a subspecies.
The Solomon Islands (archipelago) is an island group in the western South Pacific Ocean, north-east of Australia. The archipelago is in the Melanesian subregion and bioregion of Oceania and forms the eastern boundary of the Solomon Sea. The many islands of the archipelago are distributed across the sovereign states of Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands. The largest island in the archipelago is Bougainville Island, which is a part of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville along with Buka Island, the Nukumanu Islands, and a number of smaller nearby islands. Much of the remainder falls within the territory of Solomon Islands and include the atolls of Ontong Java, Sikaiana, the raised coral atolls of Bellona and Rennell, and the volcanic islands of Choiseul, Guadalcanal, Makira, Malaita, New Georgia, the Nggelas, Santa Isabel, and the Shortlands. The Santa Cruz Islands are not a part of the archipelago.
Between 60 and 70 languages are spoken in the Solomon Islands archipelago which covers a broader area than the nation state of Solomon Islands, and includes the island of Bougainville, which is an autonomous province of Papua New Guinea (PNG). The lingua franca of the archipelago is Pijin, and the official language in both countries is English.
Teop is a language of northern Bougainville, Papua New Guinea. It falls within the Oceanic languages, a subgrouping of the Austronesian language family. According to Malcolm Ross, Teop belongs to the Nehan-Bougainville family of languages, part of the Northwest Solomonic group of the Meso-Melanesian cluster within the Oceanic languages. Its closest relative is Saposa.
Lawunuia is an Austronesian language spoken along the Piva river in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea. It is closely related to Banoni; together, Lawununia and Banoni make up one of the five primary branches of Northwest Solomonic, a major subgroup of the Oceanic languages.
Bannoni, also known as Tsunari, is an Austronesian language of Papua New Guinea. It has approximately 1,000 native speakers. The Banoni people refer to their language as Tsunari, but acknowledge the name Banoni and accept it as well. Tsunari technically translates to 'their truth'.
