Suau

Suau, also called Iou, is an Oceanic language of the Papuan Tip cluster, head of the Suauic linkage that also includes Saliba and Buhutu. It is spoken in the coastal villages and small islands of Milne Bay Province at the southeastern tip of New Guinea, and beyond its home villages it serves as a regional lingua franca along the surrounding coasts.

The people of these shores live from fishing, sago and garden plots, and were among the first populations of the island's southeast to meet Europeans: in July 1606 the Spanish expedition of Luis Vaez de Torres surveyed Milne Bay while sailing westward through the strait that bears his name.