The family of Northwest Solomonic languages is a branch of the Oceanic languages. It includes the Austronesian languages

Austronesian languages

The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia that are spoken by about 386 million people. It is on par with Indo-European, Niger-Congo, Afroasiatic and Uralic as one of the...

 of Bougainville

Bougainville

-People:*Louis Antoine de Bougainville , French navigator, explorer and military commander*Hyacinthe de Bougainville , French naval officer and son of Louis Antoine de Bougainville-Places:...

 and Buka

Buka

Buka can refer to:* Buka, Papua New Guinea, the war capital of Bougainville Province.* Buka Island is the second largest island in the Papua New Guinean province of Bougainville.* Buka Entertainment, a computer game publisher...

 in Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...

, and of Choiseul

Choiseul

-People:*Choiseul . Holders include:-** Caesar, duc de Choiseul , French marshal and diplomat, generally known for the best part of his life as marshal du Plessis-Praslin** Claude de Choiseul , marshal of France in 1693...

, New Georgia

New Georgia

New Georgia is the largest island of the Western Province of the Solomon Islands.-Geography:This island is located in the New Georgia Group, an archipelago including most of the other larger islands in the province...

, and Santa Isabel

Santa Isabel Island

Santa Isabel Island is the longest in the Solomon Islands, South Pacific, and the largest in the group of islands in Isabel Province.-Location and geographic data:...

 (excluding Bugotu) in the Solomon Islands

Solomon Islands

Solomon Islands is a sovereign state in Oceania, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands. It covers a land mass of . The capital, Honiara, is located on the island of Guadalcanal...

.

The unity of Northwest Solomonic and the number and composition of its subgroups, along with its relationship to other Oceanic groups, was established in pioneering work by Malcolm Ross.

Components

Northwest Solomonic consists of six subgroups:

• Nehan–North Bougainville
• Piva–Bannoni
• Mono–Uruavan
• Choiseul languages
  Choiseul languages
  -Languages:*Ririo–Babatana**Babatana **Ririo*Vaghua–Varisi**Vaghua**Varisi...
  
  
• New Georgia languages
  New Georgia languages
  The ten New Georgia languages are a group of the Northwest Solomonic languages spoken on or near New Georgia Island in the Western Province of Solomon Islands.-Languages:...
  
  
• Santa Isabel languages
  Santa Isabel languages
  -Languages:The unity of the Santa Isabel languages is fully supported by a 2008 analysis of the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database The internal structure differs; however, according to Ethnologue, the languages in question are close enough that they can use the same literature.*West Santa...
  
  

A 2008 statistical lexical analysis of the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database proposed a smaller Northwest Solomonic grouping consisting only of Choiseul, Isabel and New Georgia. This study, which has yet to be widely accepted, gives a 90% probability that the Choiseul and New Georgia languages form a group on their own, with the Santa Isabel languages being the most divergent. Conversely, presents lexical and grammatical evidence linking the Isabel and New Georgia languages. The database study also suggested the unity of the Nehan–Bougainville languages

Nehan–Bougainville languages

The dozen Nehan–Bougainville languages are a group of Oceanic languages spoken on the Green Islands , Buka Island, Bougainville, and surrounding islands in Papua New Guinea.-Languages:...

 (Piva–Bannoni and Nehan–North Bougainville) as a separate branche, and that the Mono–Uruavan languages may be in the Patpatar–Tolai branch.