Marau Wawa language explained

Marau Wawa
State:Solomon Islands
Extinct:ca. 1930
Familycolor:Austronesian
Fam3:Oceanic
Fam4:Southeast Solomonic
Fam5:Malaita – San Cristobal
Fam6:San Cristobal?
Iso3:none
Glotto:mara1417
Glottorefname:Marau Wawa

Marau Wawa is an extinct language once spoken on Marau Island, off Makira in the Solomon Islands. (The island was actually named Wawa; marau just means "island".) The last speaker was old in 1919; the island had been abandoned after a raid some years earlier. The language may have been one of the Makira languages, but it was quite distinct.[1]

Notes and References

  1. Sidney Ray (1926), A Comparative Study of the Melanesian Island Languages, CUP, pp. 471–472.