Bilua language
Bilua (also known as Mbilua or Vella Lavella) is the most populous Papuan language spoken in the Solomon Islands. It is a Central Solomon language spoken by about 9,000 people on the island of Vella Lavella. It is one of the four non-Austronesian languages spoken in the Solomon Islands. Classification. "Bilua is sometimes grouped with the other Central Solomons languages and beyond (Wurm 1975b) but closer inspection shows that a genealogical relation is not demonstrable (Dunn and Terrill 2012, Terrill 2011)" (Hammarström, forthcoming). Phonology. The consonant and vowels sounds of Bilua. Consonants. The voiced stops and affricate  sounds /b d ɡ dʒ/ can occur as prenasalized allophones, when occurring intervocalically [ᵐb ⁿd ᵑɡ ⁿdʒ]. Other consonant allophones include [w tʃ] for /β dʒ/. Vowels. Four vowel sounds /i u e o/ have allophones but only in diphthongs as [ɪ ɛ ɔ ʊ]. Noun classification. Bilua has a masculine-feminine gender system with no neuter nouns. Truly males are always male and truly female are always female.