The 'Are'are language is a language that is spoken by the 'Are'are people, who live mainly on the Solomon Islands. It is spoken by 17,800, which makes them the second largest language in the Solomons after the Kwara'ae (also from Malaita). According to Ethnologue, the literacy rate is somewhere between 30-60%.

Classification

The language belongs to the larger Austronesian family of languages as do all other ten dialects on of Malaita.

Geographic Distribution

The language is spoken mainly by the 'Are'are people, on the southern part of Malaita island, as well as nearby South Malaita Island and the eastern shore of Guadalcanal (the Marau Sound, 60 km away), in the Solomon Islands archipelago.

Dialects

The language is divided into two dialects, 'Are'are proper, and Marau (spoken in eastern part of Guadalcanal, Marau Sound). The language also spoken in the northern part of the Makira Island known as Arosi.

Grammar

The language uses a subject-verb-object word order.

References