Southern Oceanic languages

It was proposed by John Lynch in 1995 and supported by later studies.

It appears to be a linkage rather than a language family with a clearly defined internal nested structure.

[3]: 823–826  Nevertheless, languages in the eastern Solomon Islands, including Guadalcanal, Malaita, Makira, and a scattering of North Vanuatu languages including Mota, Raga, and Tamambo, are much more conservative.

[1][4] Lynch (1995) tentatively grouped the languages as follows:[5] The non-nuclear branches are subsumed under Northern Vanuatu.

Ross, Pawley, & Osmond (2016) propose the following internal classification for Southern Oceanic.