Kilivila

Kilivila, also called Kiriwina, is an Oceanic language of the Papuan Tip cluster, spoken by the Trobriand islanders of the Trobriand Islands in the Solomon Sea off the eastern tip of New Guinea. It belongs to the Kilivila–Misima linkage, and its several dialects correspond to the different tribes of the main island.

Its speakers are organized in matrilineal clans that hold land in common and take part in the kula, a far-flung circuit of shell exchange carried out in large seagoing canoes. The islands were unknown to Europeans until 1793, when a French expedition charted them and named the group after its officer Denis de Trobriand.