Lawunuia language

{{Short description|Austronesian language of Papua New Guinea}}

{{Infobox language

|name=Lawunuia

|altname=Piva

|states=Papua New Guinea

|region=Piva River, Bougainville Province

|speakers=2,000

|date=2000

|ref=e27

|familycolor=Austronesian

|fam2=Malayo-Polynesian

|fam3=Oceanic

|fam4=Western

|fam5=Meso-Melanesian

|fam6=Northwest Solomonic

|fam7=Piva–Banoni

|iso3=tgi

|glotto=lawu1237

|glottorefname=Lawunuia

}}

Lawunuia (also called Piva) is an Austronesian language spoken along the Piva river in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea.{{e27|tgi|Lawunuia}} It is closely related to Banoni;{{cite book |last=Lincoln |first=Peter C. |chapter=Banoni, Piva and Papuanization |editor1=Reesink, G.P. |editor2=Fleischmann, L. |editor3=Turpeinen, S. |editor4=Lincoln, P.C. |title=Papers in New Guinea Linguistics No. 19 |pages=77-110 |location= |publisher=Pacific Linguistics |year=1976 |doi=10.15144/PL-A45.77}} together, Lawununia and Banoni make up one of the five primary branches of Northwest Solomonic, a major subgroup of the Oceanic languages.{{cite book |last=Ross |first=Malcolm |year=1988 |title=Proto-Oceanic and the Austronesian languages of western Melanesia |location=Canberra |publisher=Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University}}