The Temotu languages, named after Temotu Province

Temotu Province

Temotu is the easternmost province of the Solomon Islands. The province was formerly known as Santa Cruz Islands Province. It consists, essentially, of two chains of islands which run parallel to each other from the northwest to the southeast.- Islands :...

 of 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...

, are a branch of Oceanic languages proposed in Ross & Næss 2007 for the Reefs – Santa Cruz languages. These languages had previously been considered Papuan

Papuan languages

The Papuan languages are those languages of the western Pacific which are neither Austronesian nor Australian. The term does not presuppose a genetic relationship. The concept of Papuan peoples as distinct from Melanesians was first suggested and named by Sidney Herbert Ray in 1892.-The...

, but Ross & Næss established that the closest relatives were the Utupua–Vanikoro languages, previously considered Central–Eastern Oceanic.

• Reef Islands – Santa Cruz
• Utupua–Vanikoro. May be two independent branches:
  • Utupua
    Utupua languages
    The three Utupua languages form a branch of the Temotu languages:...
    
    
  • Vanikoro
    Vanikoro languages
    The three Vanikoro languages form a branch of the Temotu languages. They are spoken on the island of Vanikoro, southeast of the Solomon Islands....