Grammar and Vocabulary of the Lau Language, Solomon Islands

by W. G. Ivens

Produced by David Starner, with help from Charles Franks

and the Distributed Online Proofreading Team.

Transcriber's Note: Some umlauts and other fine distinctions of Sa'a orthography have been lost. The Lau orthography is correct as given.

GRAMMAR AND VOCABULARY OF THE LAU LANGUAGE: SOLOMON ISLANDS

BY

WALTER G. IVENS, M. A., LITT. D.

CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON PUBLICATION NO. 300

PREFACE.

Lau is the name given to the language spoken by the inhabitants of the artificial islets which lie off the northeast coast of Big Malaita, Solomon Islands. The language spoken on the coast from Uru on the northeast to Langalanga, Alite Harbor, on the northwest of Big Malaita, is practically Lau. On the west coast there is considerable admixture of Fiu, which is the language of the bush behind the Langalanga lagoon. In Dr. Codrington's "Melanesian Languages," pp. 39 et seq., certain words are given as spoken at Alite in Langalanga. These words are probably Fiu rather than Lau.

The purest Lau is spoken at Sulufou, one of the artificial islets near Atta Cove. The inhabitants of Ai-lali, on the mainland of Big Malaita opposite the island Aio, are an offshoot of the Lau-speaking peoples. In Port Adam (Malau) on Little Malaita, some 12 miles north of Sa'a, there are two villages, Ramarama and Malede, inhabited by Lau-speaking peoples, and the inhabitants of these villages hold as a tradition that their forefathers migrated from Suraina, near Atta Cove, 80 miles away, along the coast to the north.