Lawunuia (also called Piva) is an

Austronesian language The Austronesian languages ( ) are a language family widely spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Madagascar, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Taiwan (by Taiwanese indigenous peoples). They are spoken b ...

spoken along the

Piva river The Piva (, ) is a river in Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The river runs through Montenegro for most of its course length, and in its last three kilometres marks the border between the two countries. Course The Piva emerges from the ' ...

in the

Autonomous Region of Bougainville In developmental psychology and morality, moral, political, and bioethics, bioethical philosophy, autonomy is the capacity to make an informed, uncoerced decision. Autonomous organizations or institutions are independent or self-governing. Auto ...

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

. It is closely related to Banoni; together, Lawununia and Banoni make up one of the five primary branches of Northwest Solomonic, a major subgroup of the

Oceanic languages The approximately 450 Oceanic languages are a branch of the Austronesian languages. The area occupied by speakers of these languages includes Polynesia, as well as much of Melanesia and Micronesia. Though covering a vast area, Oceanic languages ...

References

Northwest Solomonic languages Languages of Papua New Guinea Languages of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville {{MesoMelanesian-lang-stub