The Central Solomon languages are the four Papuan languages spoken in the state of Solomon Islands.

The four languages are, listed from northwest to southeast, Bilua of Vella Lavella and Ghizo islands, Touo (also known as Baniata) of Rendova Island, Lavukaleve of the Russell Islands, and Savosavo of Savo Island.

Classification The four Central Solomon languages were identified as a family by Wilhelm Schmidt in 1908. The languages are at best distantly related, and evidence for their relationship is meager. Dunn and Terrill (2012) argue that the lexical evidence vanishes when Oceanic loanwords are excluded.Michael Dunn & Angela Terrill (2012) Assessing the lexical evidence for a Central Solomons Papuan family using the Oswalt Monte Carlo test. Diachronica 29:1–27. Ross (2005) and Pedrós (2015), however, accept a connection, based on similarities among pronouns and other grammatical forms.

Pedrós (2015) suggests, tentatively, that the branching of the family is as follows.

Central Solomons Lavukaleve–Touo Savosavo–Bilua

Savosavo and Bilua, despite being the most distant languages geographically, both split more recently than Lavukaleve and Touo according to Pedrós.

Palmer (2018) regards the evidence for Central Solomons as tentative but promising.

An automated computational analysis (ASJP 4) by Müller et al. (2013)Müller, André, Viveka Velupillai, Søren Wichmann, Cecil H. Brown, Eric W. Holman, Sebastian Sauppe, Pamela Brown, Harald Hammarström, Oleg Belyaev, Johann-Mattis List, Dik Bakker, Dmitri Egorov, Matthias Urban, Robert Mailhammer, Matthew S. Dryer, Evgenia Korovina, David Beck, Helen Geyer, Pattie Epps, Anthony Grant, and Pilar Valenzuela. 2013. ASJP World Language Trees of Lexical Similarity: Version 4 (October 2013). grouped Touo, Savosavo, and Bilua together. Lavukaleve was not included.See further information in the Lavukaleve language Spanish article. However, since the analysis was automatically generated, the grouping could be either due to mutual lexical borrowing or genetic inheritance.

Pronoun reconstructions Pedrós (2015) argues for the existence of the family through comparison of pronouns and other gender, person and number morphemes and based on the existence of a common syncretism between 2nd person nonsingular and inclusive. He performs an internal reconstruction for the pronominal morphemes of each language and then proposes a reconstruction of some of the pronouns of the claimed family. The reconstructions are the following: 1 singular 2 singular inclusive/2 non-singular 1 exclusive Pre-Savosavo *a-ɲi *no *me a- Pre-Touo e̤ noe *me e̤- Pre-Lavukaleve *ŋai *ŋo *me e Pre-Bilua *ani/*aŋai *ŋo me e- Proto-Central Solomons *ani/*aŋai *ŋo *me *e

Numerals Central Solomon numerals from Pedrós (2015):

! numeral !! Savosavo !! Touo !! Lavukaleve !! Bilua |- ! 1 | ˈela, ˈpade / pa || aɺo / azo || ˈtelakom, ˈtelako || ˈomadeu, ˈmadeu |- ! 2 | ˈedo || e̤ɺi || ˈlelemal, ˈlelaol, ˈlelaɰel, ˈlemal || ˈomuga, ˈmuga |- ! 3 | iˈɰiβa / iˈɰia || hie || ˈeŋa || ˈzouke, ke |- ! 4 | ˈaɰaβa || a̤vo || nun || ˈariku |- ! 5 | ˈara || sodu || ˈsie || ˈsike, ke

As the comparisons indicate, lexical evidence for the relatedness of the four languages is limited.

Vocabulary comparison The following basic vocabulary words are from Tryon & Hackman (1982),Tryon, D.T. and Hackman, B.D. Solomon Islands languages: An internal classification. C-72, viii + 493 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1982. as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database. The Savosavo data is from Claudia Wegener's field notes.

The words cited constitute translation equivalents, with no claim as to whether they are cognate or not. If one sets apart the obvious loanwords from Oceanic languages (e.g. batu, vatu for “head”, susu for “breast”), the number of potential cognates across these four varieties is evidently very low.

{| class="wikitable sortable" ! gloss !! Lavukaleve !! Mbaniata(Lokuru dial.) !! Mbilua(Ndovele dial.) !! Savosavo |- ! head | vatu || uɔ || lezu || batu |- ! hair | memea || zufu || tou || luta; sivuɰa |- ! ear | hovul || ōŋgoto || taliŋa || tagalu |- ! eye | lemi || mberɔ || vilu || nito |- ! nose | sisi || emɔ || ŋgame || ɲoko |- ! tooth | neo || nāne || taka || nale |- ! tongue | let || ānl || leño || lapi |- ! leg | tau furime || ɔe || kiti || |- ! louse | kea; lai || lisa; vutu || sipi; tiŋgau || dole |- ! dog | mitakeu || sie || siele || misu |- ! bird | malaɣul || mānozo || mbiaŋambiaŋa || kosu |- ! egg | keruv || āndena || tɔruru || kolei; si |- ! blood | ravu || vo || ndara || ɰabu |- ! bone | sosokio || minu || piza || tovolo |- ! skin | keut || zuɔna || tupu || korakora |- ! breast | ɔfu || susu || susu || susu |- ! man | ali || finɔzɔ || mamba || tada |- ! woman | aira || ŋgohe || reko || adaki |- ! sky | totoās || uzia || au || oka |- ! moon | kua || īndi || kamboso || kuɰe |- ! water | lafi || fiɔ || nĵu || piva |- ! fire | lake || hirɔ || uza || keda |- ! stone | mbeko; veko || hɛŋga || lando || kato |- ! road, path | lake || e || keve || keva |- ! name | laŋi || nini || ŋi || nini |- ! eat | eu; eui; oune || azafe || vuato || l-ou; samu |- ! one | dom; tetelom || āroŋo; thufi || mandeu || ela; pade |- ! two | lelal; lemal || ēri || omuŋga || edo

Syntax All Central Solomon languages have SOV word order except for Bilua, which has SVO word order due to Oceanic influence.

Links and references See also Papuan languages Temotu languages, Oceanic but with heavy Papuan substrate influence Reefs-Santa Cruz languages

Bibliography Dunn, Michael, Angela Terrill, Ger Reesink, Robert A. Foley, Stephen C. Levinson, 2005. Structural Phylogenetics and the Reconstruction of Ancient Language History. Science magazine, 23 Sept. 2005, vol. 309, p 2072. Greenhill, Simon J. & Robert Forkel. (2019). lexibank/tryonsolomon: Solomon Islands Languages (Version v3.0) [Data set]. Zenodo. Pedrós, Toni, 2015. "New arguments for a Central Solomons family based on evidence from pronominal morphemes". Oceanic Linguistics, vol. 54, no. 2 (358-395). Ross, Malcolm, 2001. "Is there an East Papuan phylum? Evidence from pronouns", in The boy from Bundaberg. Studies in Melanesian linguistics in honour of Tom Dutton, ed. by Andrew Pawley, Malcolm Ross and Darrell Tryon: 301-322. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. Ross, Malcolm, 2005. "Pronouns as a preliminary diagnostic for grouping Papuan languages", in Papuan pasts: cultural, linguistic and biological histories of Papuan speaking peoples, ed. by Andrew Pawley, Robert Attenborough, Robin Hide and Jack Golson: 15-65. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.

References

External links Central Solomons languages database at TransNewGuinea.org Central Solomons word lists (Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database)