Hoava is an Oceanic language spoken by 1000–1500 people on New Georgia Island, Solomon Islands. Speakers of Hoava are multilingual and usually also speak Roviana, Marovo, Solomon Islands Pijin, English. Introduction History Hoava is an Austronesian language that is spoken mostly on the island of New Georgia. New Georgia is a mountainous island, 85 kilometres long and 41 kilometres wide at its widest part, with a total area of , covered with dense rainforests (Davis 2003). The island was involved in a series of World War II battles, later named the New Georgia Campaign, which lasted from June 20 to November 3, 1943. Population Hoava is an Austronesian language that is spoken in three known locations: Western Province, New Georgia Island, and North Marovo lagoon, but mainly New Georgia Island. According to a 1986 census there are about 2,360 speakers of the language, but as of the 1999 census, the language is spoken by 460 people, suggesting a huge decline in the number of speakers. Phonology Consonant inventory Hoava uses 16 consonants in its phoneme system, . Vowel inventory Hoava uses five vowels: . There is no phonemic distinction of vowel length, although vowels can be lengthened when stressed (Davis 2003). The vowels can be combined into pairs with the weight of two syllables (Davis 2003). Syllable structure Hoava has an open syllable structure of (C)V. Two vowels occurring together are counted as two syllables, since they function as such for transitive marking rules (Davis 2003). For many Oceanic languages of the Austronesian family group it is common that words do not end in consonants. Syntax Basic word order In traditional typology Hoava is a verb–subject–object (VSO) language. There are some modifications to this particular pattern for focusing and topicalization purposes (Davis 2003). Morphology Reduplication Reduplication is frequently used in Hoava as a method of word formation, to express intensification, and to form the progressive aspect of a verb (Davis 2003). Reduplication is used to create words denoting entities related to the referent of the source word, either as part of the entity, or having a resemblance to it, or being a metaphorical extension" (Davis 2003). 'lost'; 'forgot' 'jump'; 'jumping' Pronouns Personal pronouns Information in the following sections is based on Davis 2003:45-109, unless otherwise stated. Subsequent references give only relevant page numbers and figures. In Hoava there exist three sets of characteristics in order to distinguish which personal pronoun