Mengen

Mengen is an Oceanic language of the Ngero-Vitiaz linkage, spoken in the Pomio District of eastern New Britain, around Jacquinot Bay and in the inland villages behind it. Its varieties form three divergent dialects: north-coast Maeng, south-coast Poeng, and inland or Bush Mengen, also called Longueinga; some linguists treat Poeng and Maeng as distinct languages.

Long contact along Wide Bay has left Mengen features on Sulka, the non-Austronesian isolate spoken farther along the coast. Mengen descends from the speech of the Austronesian seafarers who settled the New Britain coast around 1500 BCE, the same Oceanic expansion whose related languages run westward through the Vitiaz Strait to the coasts of New Guinea.