'Are'are language 'Are'are language The 'Are'are language is spoken by the 'Are'are people of the Solomon Islands. It is spoken by about 18,000 people, making it the second-largest Oceanic language in the Solomons after the Kwara'ae (also from Malaita). The literacy rate for 'Are'are is somewhere between 30% and 60% for first language speakers, and 25%–50% for second language learners. There are also translated Bible portions into the language from 1957–2008. The language is spoken mainly by the 'Are'are people, on the southern part of Malaita island, as well as nearby South Malaita Island and the eastern shore of Guadalcanal (the Marau
Choiseul Island under both protectorates, converting most of the population to Christianity. In the early 20th century several British and Australian firms began large-scale coconut planting. Choiseul was visited by Austrian anthropologist and photographer Hugo Bernatzik in 1932. Bernatzik documented some of the few remaining ancestral customs of the island people which are included in an ethnography that he published a few years later. He also took some photographs of the islanders and brought back a stone urn with carvings, reflecting a culture that he deemed was dying in contact with the modern world. During World War II, the Choiseul was occupied