Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jul 24, 2026

Lawunuia language

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.

Last revised
Jul 24, 2026
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≈ 1 min
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Citations
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Source
Wikipedia ↗
Lawunuia
Piva
Native toPapua New Guinea
RegionPiva River, Bougainville Province
Native speakers
(2,000 cited 2000)1
Language codes
ISO 639-3tgi
Glottologlawu1237

Lawunuia (also called Piva) is an Austronesian language spoken along the Piva river in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea.2 It is closely related to Banoni;3 together, Lawununia and Banoni make up one of the five primary branches of Northwest Solomonic, a major subgroup of the Oceanic languages.4

References

References

  1. Lawunuia at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024) Closed access icon
  2. Lawunuia at Ethnologue (27th ed., 2024) Closed access icon
  3. Lincoln, Peter C. (1976). "Banoni, Piva and Papuanization". In Reesink, G.P.; Fleischmann, L.; Turpeinen, S.; Lincoln, P.C. (eds.). Papers in New Guinea Linguistics No. 19. Pacific Linguistics. pp. 77–110. doi:10.15144/PL-A45.77.
  4. Ross, Malcolm (1988). Proto-Oceanic and the Austronesian languages of western Melanesia. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University.