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25-549: The largest island is Gaua (formerly called Santa Maria), which has a rugged terrain, rising to Mount Gharat , an active volcano at the centre of the island, at 797 m (2,615 ft). Gaua's freshwater Lake Letas , in its volcanic crater, is the largest lake in Vanuatu. A slightly smaller island in the group, Vanua Lava , is higher, at 946 m (3,104 ft); it too has an active volcano: Mount Suretamate (also spelled Süretimiat or Sere'ama, 921 m (3,022 ft)). To

50-401: A 6 × 9 km caldera , within which lies a crater lake , known as Lake Letas , which is the largest lake in Vanuatu. To the east of the lake is Siri Waterfall (120 m drop). Gaua's geology is fairly typical of an immature volcanic island arc . The oldest part of the island is the southwestern corner, which consists largely of primitive basalts and ankaramites . Most of the island

75-436: A chain of intersecting subgroups (a linkage ), for which no distinct proto-language can be reconstructed. Lynch, Ross, & Crowley (2002) propose three primary groups of Oceanic languages: The "residues" (as they are called by Lynch, Ross, & Crowley), which do not fit into the three groups above, but are still classified as Oceanic are: Ross & Næss (2007) removed Utupua–Vanikoro, from Central–Eastern Oceanic, to

100-680: A few flights each week and Air Taxi Vanuatu as requested. Ships come to these islands, principally to pick up the products being exported, but they will also take passengers. Like the rest of Vanuatu , the Banks Islands were first settled around the 12th century  BCE by Austronesian navigators belonging to the Lapita culture . Archaeologists have found ancient obsidian in Motalava , Vanua Lava and Gaua , and they have found Lapita pottery on Motalava . Between 25 and 29 April 1606,

125-521: A few hundred — and, in some cases, no more than a handful - of last speakers. All of these languages belong to the Oceanic subgroup of the Austronesian language family. 13°50′S 167°35′E  /  13.833°S 167.583°E  / -13.833; 167.583 Gaua Gaua [gawa] (formerly known as Santa Maria Island ) is the largest and second most populous of

150-410: A new primary branch of Oceanic: Blench (2014) considers Utupua and Vanikoro to be two separate branches that are both non-Austronesian. Ross, Pawley, & Osmond (2016) propose the following revised rake-like classification of Oceanic, with 9 primary branches. Roger Blench (2014) argues that many languages conventionally classified as Oceanic are in fact non-Austronesian (or " Papuan ", which

175-417: A vast area, Oceanic languages are spoken by only two million people. The largest individual Oceanic languages are Eastern Fijian with over 600,000 speakers, and Samoan with an estimated 400,000 speakers. The Gilbertese (Kiribati), Tongan , Tahitian , Māori and Tolai ( Gazelle Peninsula ) languages each have over 100,000 speakers. The common ancestor which is reconstructed for this group of languages

200-472: Is Jolap [ʧʊlap] , on the west coast. In addition to Mwerlap (the language of the immigrant population), there are five languages traditionally spoken on Gaua: Lakon (also called Vuré), Olrat , Koro , Dorig , and Nume . The livelihood of the people of Gaua is based on the agricultural economy that is traditional throughout of Melanesia : a combination of fishing and horticulture. Their principal exports are copra and cacao . The island

225-667: Is Vet Tagde (also known as Vot Tande or Vat Ganai), which is an extinct volcano that last erupted 3.5 million years ago. Other small islands in this eastern chain in the Banks Island group include the Rowa Islands (also called the Reef Islands), which are a few very small, low islands on a coral atoll . Mota Lava is the largest and highest (411 m) of this eastern chain of islands; off its southern coast, attached by high corals that can be waded through at low tide,

250-460: Is a geographic rather than genetic grouping), including Utupua and Vanikoro . Blench doubts that Utupua and Vanikoro are closely related, and thus should not be grouped together. Since each of the three Utupua and three Vanikoro languages are highly distinct from each other, Blench doubts that these languages had diversified on the islands of Utupua and Vanikoro, but had rather migrated to the islands from elsewhere. According to him, historically this

275-568: Is called Gog [ɣɔɣ] in Nume , Gō [ɣʊ] in Koro (both < *ɣaua ), and Lkon [lkɔn] in Dorig (< *laᵑgona ). Other Torres-Banks languages that have only one reflex of the two etyma include Hiw and Lo-Toga Gawe [ɣaˈwə] (< *ɣaua ), Vera'a Lōkōno [lʊkʊnɔ] (< *laᵑgona ) and Mwesen Gō [ɣʊ] (< *ɣaua ). Gaua

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300-733: Is called Proto-Oceanic (abbr. "POc"). The Oceanic languages were first shown to be a language family by Sidney Herbert Ray in 1896 and, besides Malayo-Polynesian , they are the only established large branch of Austronesian languages . Grammatically, they have been strongly influenced by the Papuan languages of northern New Guinea , but they retain a remarkably large amount of Austronesian vocabulary. According to Lynch, Ross, & Crowley (2002), Oceanic languages often form linkages with each other. Linkages are formed when languages emerged historically from an earlier dialect continuum . The linguistic innovations shared by adjacent languages define

325-620: Is covered by the Santa Maria Pyroclastic Series, a mafic ignimbrite unit that was produced by the eruption that formed the caldera. Gaua is rare in hosting a mafic ignimbrite, as most similarly explosive eruptions are more silicic ; other examples include Masaya in Nicaragua , and on Ambrym , and Tanna , also in Vanuatu. The eruption of the SMPS was also associated with the activation of ring faults , and

350-624: Is served by Gaua Airport , which is located in the northeast corner of the island. The modern name Gaua is pronounced [gawa] in Bislama , the lingua franca of Vanuatu, and in French or English . In the local Banks languages , the island was traditionally known not by one name, but two. One name reconstructs in Proto-Torres–Banks as a form *ɣaua [ɣaˈua] , the other one as *laᵑgona . These respectively referred to

375-536: Is the tiny islet of Ra . The islands of Mota , Merig , and Merelava complete the southeastern part of the archipelago. The principal economic activity is subsistence agriculture , although copra , coffee and (on Gaua) cacao are grown for export. The sulphur deposits of Mount Suretamate on Vanua Lava were formerly worked by a French company. Tourism is increasingly important on the islands, which can be reached by airplane. There are airports on Mota Lava, Vanua Lava and Gaua, served by Air Vanuatu , which operates

400-548: The Banks Islands in Torba Province in northern Vanuatu . It covers 342 km . Gaua is subject to frequent earthquakes and cyclones. The climate is humid tropical; the average annual rainfall exceeds 3500 mm. It has rugged terrain, reaching up to Mount Gharat (797 m), the peak of the active stratovolcano which lies at the center of the island. Its most recent eruption was in 2013. The volcano has

425-671: The Banks Islands became the first part of Vanuatu to be discovered by a European explorer: A Spanish expedition led by the Portuguese explorer Pedro Fernández de Quirós sailed past Merelava and stopped at Gaua before landing on Espiritu Santo and establishing a short-lived colony there. Merelava was charted as San Marcos , Mota Lava as Lágrimas de San Pedro (St. Peter's tears), Vanua Lava as Portal de Belén (Stable at Bethlehem), and Gaua as Santa María . Captain James Cook explored Vanuatu in 1774, and believed he had seen

450-486: The east of Vanua Lava are two islets in the groupo, Ravenga and Kwakea (also spelled Qakea). Sola , the provincial capital, is on Vanua Lava. The third largest island in the group, Ureparapara (also known as Parapara), is an old volcanic cone that has been breached by the sea, forming a bay, known as Divers Bay, on its east coast. To the east of these larger islands lie a number of smaller ones. The furthest north of them, 50 km (31 mi) northeast of Ureparapara,

475-407: The immigrant language Mwerlap has Gō [ɣʊ] and Lakon [laˈkɔn] . Other Torres-Banks languages that have reflexes of the two etyma include Mwotlap Agō [aˈɣʊ] and Alkon [alˈkon] ; and Vurës Gō [ɣo] and Lokon [lɔˈkɔn] . Some modern languages have generalized one of these two etyma to refer to the whole island. Thus it

500-409: The island had a population of 2,491, and an annual growth rate of 2.0 percent. The inhabitants are scattered among various coastal villages on the western, southern and northeastern sides of the island. The eastern side has a few hamlets with an immigrant community, the members of which have come from the two smaller islands Merig and Merelava , that lie southeast of Gaua. The largest village on Gaua

525-505: The northeast half of the island, and its southwestern half (where one finds Lakona Bay , and also where the Lakon language is spoken). Thus the Mota language , which missionaries used when naming most places in the Banks Islands , has the forms Gaua [ɣaua] and Lakona [lakona] ; Olrat and Lakon have Gaō [ɣaˈʊ] and Lakon [laˈkɔn] ; and

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550-665: The production of parasitic volcanic cones around the upper slopes of the volcano. The upper slopes of the island have been recognised as an Important Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International , because they support populations of Vanuatu megapodes , Vanuatu imperial pigeons , Tanna fruit doves , red-bellied fruit doves , palm lorikeets , cardinal myzomelas , fan-tailed gerygones , long-tailed trillers , streaked fantails , Melanesian flycatchers , southern shrikebills , Vanuatu white-eyes , and red-headed parrotfinches . Other animals found there include long-tailed fruit bats , Vanuatu flying foxes , and coconut crabs . In 2009,

575-477: The whole chain, but he did not see the Banks Islands. They were explored by William Bligh , of the British Navy, and named after his patron, Sir Joseph Banks . They were charted by Matthew Flinders . Vanua Lava was first explored by a New Zealand bishop, George Augustus Selwyn in 1859. The inhabitants of the Banks Islands speak 15 different languages. Several are endangered , being spoken by no more than

600-649: Was due to the Lapita demographic expansion consisting of both Austronesian and non-Austronesian settlers migrating from the Lapita homeland in the Bismarck Archipelago to various islands further to the east. Other languages traditionally classified as Oceanic that Blench (2014) suspects are in fact non-Austronesian include the Kaulong language of West New Britain , which has a Proto-Malayo-Polynesian vocabulary retention rate of only 5%, and languages of

625-480: Was first sighted by Europeans during the Spanish expedition of Pedro Fernández de Quirós , from 25 to 29 April 1606. The island’s name was then charted as Santa María . Oceanic languages The approximately 450 Oceanic languages are a branch of the Austronesian languages . The area occupied by speakers of these languages includes Polynesia , as well as much of Melanesia and Micronesia . Though covering

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