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 Papuan non-Austronesian languages spoken in the Solomon Islands.
"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).
The consonant and vowels sounds of Bilua.
The voiced stops and affricate sounds /b d á dÃÂ/ can occur as prenasalized allophones, when occurring intervocalically [áµÂb â¿d áµÂá â¿dÃÂ]. Other consonant allophones include [w tÃÂ] for /ò dÃÂ/.
Four vowel sounds /i u e o/ have allophones but only in diphthongs as [ê ààÃÂ].
Bilua has a masculine-feminine gender system with no neuter nouns. Truly males are always male and truly female are always female.