Proto-Temotu language
Proto-Temotu (abbreviated as PTm) is the reconstructed ancestor of the Temotu languages of Temotu Province, Solomon Islands. It belongs to the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian languages. A partial reconstruction was done by Malcolm Ross and Åshild Næss in 2007, with further revisions by William James Lackey and Brenda H. Boerger in 2021. Descendants. Proto-Temotu diversified into three primary branches: Reefs – Santa Cruz, Utupua, and Vanikoro. Originally, some linguists had proposed to group Utupua and Vanikoro languages under a single Utupua–Vanikoro subgroup, sometimes labelled “Eastern Outer Islands”. The unity of that subgroup has been  however questioned by Lackey & Boerger (2021), who fail to identify shared phonological innovations for it. Innovations. Proto-Temotu was a phonologically conservative language in many respects, and differed very little from its immediate ancestor Proto-Oceanic. For example, it retained Proto-Oceanic final consonants, as evidenced in the paragogic addition of a final vowel in the Vanikoro languages; it retained the contrast between "*n" and "*ñ", which is lost in almost all other Oceanic languages; etc. Nevertheless, Proto-Temotu can be defined by a handful of (admittedly weak) shared phonological innovations: The small number of these shared innovations, and their  weak diagnostic value, mean that the very existence of Proto-Temotu is still under debate: it is almost the same language as Proto-Oceanic itself. Sample words. Words reconstructed for Proto-Temotu, according to Ross & Næss (2007), are: