Äiwoo (/ˈeɪwoʊ,ˈaɪ-/AY-woh,EYE-) is anOceanic language spoken on theSanta Cruz Islands and theReef Islands in theTemotu Province of theSolomon Islands.^[1]

The Äiwoo language has been known under many names in the literature, including: Aŷiwo, Ayiwo, Aïwo, Gnivo, Lanlom, Lomlom, Naaude, Nifilole, Nivo, Reef Islands, and Reefs.

Äiwoo has roughly 8,400 native speakers with roughly 5,000–6,000 of these living on the Reef islands and the rest living on the Santa Cruz islands.^[1] As such, Äiwoo is the largest of theReef Islands – Santa Cruz languages. Most speakers live on theNgawa andNgäsinue islands in the Reef Islands; others live in some villages onVanikoro or onNendö, like Kala Bay. Finally, some communities have recently been established in the capitalHoniara, notably in the White River district.

On the Reef islands, Äiwoo is the primary language spoken by all of its people. Most of them also speakPijin, the lingua franca of theSolomon Islands, while only a few people also speak English. The schooling system uses Äiwoo on the primary and secondary school level, though a standardized orthography for Äiwoo has not yet been adopted, resulting in a decline of people who can read and write.

• Voiced stops are prenasalized by default, but can be realized plain oral: e.g. /ᵐbʷ/ is realized [ᵐbʷ] ~ [bʷ].
• The voiced labio-dental approximant /ʋ/ may also be realized as a fricative [v].
• /s/ can also be heard as an affricate [t͡s].
• /t/ can also be heard as rhotic sounds [ɾ,r] within words.^[2]

Äiwoo uses a variation of the Latin alphabet. The following spelling conventions are taken from Næss’ dictionary of Äiwoo.^[2]

Note that Äiwoo distinguishes ä [æ] and â [ɑ,ɒ], both of which appear in the wordkânongä 'I want'.

Nouns are used to describe a person, place or thing. Nouns in Äiwoo can be paired with a suffix to show a possessive case. An example of this istumo 'my father'. Other nouns in Äiwoo can be followed by a possessive particle, as inkuli nou 'my dog'.^{[citation needed]}

Bound nouns are one subtype of nouns; they act like nouns but cannot be used by themselves and need to be paired with a verb, possessive case, or another noun instead.

Local nouns are another subtype of nouns, but are not like regular nouns because they can be used to indicate location without a preposition.

Verbs in Äiwoo are divided into three different classes: intransitive verbs, A-verbs, and O-verbs.

These combine only withone noun or pronoun to form a sentence but also take a prefix to indicate an action.

Similarly to intransitive verbs, A-verbs take a prefix to indicate an action; however, they combine with another noun or pronoun.

Different from intransitive verbs, O-verbs take suffixes to say who is performing the action with the noun and pronoun.

There are no verbs that start with the sounds a, ä, â, or o. The majority of verbs in Äiwoo begin with the phoneme /e/ followed by a vowel, as e.g.eâmoli ‘to look’.

Verbs beginning with the phonemes /v/ and /w/ are defined as causative verbs. Causative verbs are made by combining a causative prefix to the letters /v/ and /w/. In the Äiwoo language, the two causative prefixes arewâ- andvä-.

In the Äiwoo language,ngä andgo are two important prepositions.ngä translates to 'in, at, on, to, from', whilego corresponds to 'for, with, because of'.

Pronouns are words that take the place of nouns. An example of a pronoun isiu ‘I’.

Possessive markers are used after a noun to show the possessor of a person, place or thing.

Similarly to possessive markers, relational markers are used to show relations between a noun and something else.

Äiwoo demonstrative can cover several syntactic functions, but all share the property of distinguishing between a ‘here, close by’ and a ‘there, far away’ form.

Conjunctions are used to link together phrases or clauses.

Quantifiers are words that are used to show quantity.

Interjections are adjectives that are used by themselves without the need of other descriptive words.

In the Äiwoo language,lu- andli- are closely related to the verb stem and are thus the oldest subject prefixes still used. The other subject prefixes that follow afterlu- andli- are newer, created other syntactic roles. However, one exclusion to the list of new subject prefixes are withi.

Transitive subject forms are suffixed. In addition, transitive subject forms have possessive-like forms.

There are eight different nominalizing prefixes that are combined with a verb to create a noun which describes a person, thing, or place. These prefixes are:

In the Äiwoo language, class prefixes are combined with a noun or verb.

Äiwoo gender marking prefixes can be traced back to their Oceanic origin. To create a gender marking prefix,gi- andsi- from the nominalizing prefixes are combined with nouns.

The Äiwoo language follows the word orderOVS or Object-Verb-Subject.

In Äiwoo, three different verbal clauses are distinguished: intransitive, transitive, and semitransitive. The main difference between these three verbal clauses is that intransitives concern only one person while transitives and semitransitives concern more than one person.

In Oceanic languages, intransitive clauses follow the subject and verb format. Transitive clauses follow the order object, verb, subject. Semitransitive clauses use intransitive verbs with subject and object, resulting in a structured phrase order of subject, verb, object.

• Paradisec has a collection ofÄiwoo recordings. They also have a collection ofStephen Wurm's recordings, whichincludes some Äiwoo material.

• Næss, Åshild (2006). "Bound Nominal Elements in Äiwoo (Reefs): A Reappraisal of the 'Multiple Noun Class Systems'".Oceanic Linguistics.45 (2):269–296.doi:10.1353/ol.2007.0006.
• Ross, Malcolm & Åshild Næss (2007). "An Oceanic Origin for Aiwoo, the Language of the Reef Islands?".Oceanic Linguistics.46 (2):456–498.doi:10.1353/ol.2008.0003.hdl:1885/20053.
• Næss, Åshild & Brenda H. Boerger (2008). "Reefs – Santa Cruz as Oceanic: Evidence from the Verb Complex".Oceanic Linguistics.47:185–212.doi:10.1353/ol.0.0000.hdl:1959.13/1052427.
• Næss, Åshild (2017).A short dictionary of Äiwoo. Studies in the Languages of Island Melanesia. Canberra: Asia–Pacific Linguistics. 214 pp.hdl:1885/112469.ISBN 9781922185372.

• Languages of the Solomon Islands
• Temotu languages
• Object–verb–subject languages

• Language articles citing Ethnologue 25
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Pages with Ayiwo IPA
• Language articles with old speaker data
• Pages using gadget WikiMiniAtlas
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from May 2019
• Pages with interlinear glosses using two unnamed parameters