Solomon Islands Languages

The primary language spoken in the Solomon Islands is Melanesian languages. It is linguistically classified as an Austronesian language. Specifically, it is part of the Eastern Malayo-Polynesian language. The language is mostly made of reduplication where all or part of words keeps repeating themselves. They also have small phonemic inventories and lack consonant clusters such as “str” in English. Most words are formed by a small set of about five vowels in most cases. The official language spoken in the Solomon Islands is English.

According to statistics taken in 1999, Solomon Islands has about three main ethnic groups. They include Melanesian (94.5%), Polynesian (3%), and Micronesians (1.2%). The other ethnic groups constitute 1.1% of the population while those that were unspecified were 0.2%. Only 1-2% of the people in the Solomon Islands can speak English.

The Micronesian Languages have influenced the English phrases commonly used in the Solomon Islands. They are a pidgin form of the Standard English language.

The minority languages form about 3% of the total population. They are found in Stewart Islands and southern parts of Rennell and Bellona. The minority group is composed of Polynesian Speakers. Another not-so-popular language is the Micronesian language. Most of its speakers are immigrants of Tuvaluans and Gilbertese. Other languages include Cheke Holo (about 10,000 speakers), Are’are (17,800 speakers), Ghari (12,119 speakers), Kwaio (13,240 speakers), Lengo (13,800 speakers), and Gela (11,876 speakers) among others.