The Bible in Tinata Tuna spoken by the Tolai Pople of the Gazelle Peninsula, East New Britain Province, Papua New Guinea / A Buk Tabu / A Maulana Kunubu ma A Kalamana Kunubu / 1999 53P 3M

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Kuanua is spoken by the Tolai people of Papua New Guinea, who live on the Gazelle Peninsula in East New Britain Province. (This language is often referred to in the literature as Tolai. However, Tolai is actually the name of the cultural group. The Tolais themselves refer to their language as A Tinata Tuna, which translates as The Real Language.) Unlike many languages in Papua New Guinea, Kuanua is a healthy language and not in danger of dying out to Tok Pisin, although even Kuanua suffers from a surfeit of loanwords from Tok Pisin, e.g. the original kubar has been completely usurped by the Tok Pisin braun for brown or the Tok Pisin vilivil for bicycle has replaced the former aingau. It is considered a prestigious language and is the primary language of communication in the two major centers of East New Britain: Kokopo and Rabaul. Kuanua belongs to the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian language family. The most immediate subgroup is the Patpatar-Tolai group of languages which also includes Minigir (also spoken on the Gazelle Peninsula) and Patpatar (spoken on New Ireland).