According to legend, the island was founded by Tui Atafu, who killed off all the indigenous people and proclaimed himself chief.
In the late 1920s ritual houses were burned and missionaries from the Melanesian Mission came to Sikaiana and completely converted almost everyone on the island to Christianity.
The people were eager to learn to read and write since it offered educational and employment opportunities off the island, which helped contribute to the success of the missionaries (Donner, 2012).
Its sister languages include Kapingamarangi, Nukumanu, Nukuoro, Nukuria, Ontong Java, Takuu, and Tuvaluan.
Double consonants can also be used as a form of reduplication, showing agreement in verbs with plural subjects, or to mark repeated actions (Donner 2012).
Such a slight difference in the pronunciation can make a big difference in the meaning of the word, although some native speakers who were born after World War II don't know what the original forms of the words are (Donner 1996).
In the Sikaiana grammar system, sentences that start with a noun usually do not lead with a preposition, but for noun phrases that follow a verb phrase, it may or may not lead with a preposition (Donner, 2012).
Sikaiana uses extensive morphology to transform words to better express more complex sentences.
After WWII, many people from Sikaiana migrated to Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands in search of jobs and education (Donner, 2002).