Proto-Oceanic language

Proto-Oceanic
Proto-Oceanic
POc
Reconstruction of	Oceanic languages
Region	Bismarck Archipelago
Era	ca. late 2nd millennium BCE
Reconstructed; ancestors	Proto-Austronesian Proto-Malayo-Polynesian ;
Lower-order reconstructions	Proto-Admiralty Islands; Proto-Western Oceanic; Proto-Temotu; Proto-Southeast Solomonic; Proto-Torres-Banks; Proto-New Caledonian; Proto-South Vanuatu; Proto-Micronesian; Proto-Central Pacific;

Proto-Oceanic (abbreviated as POc) is a proto-language that historical linguists since Otto Dempwolff have reconstructed as the hypothetical common ancestor of the Oceanic subgroup of the Austronesian language family. Proto-Oceanic is a descendant of the Proto-Austronesian language (PAN), the common ancestor of the Austronesian languages.

Proto-Oceanic was probably spoken around the late 2nd millennium BCE in the Bismarck Archipelago, east of Papua New Guinea. Archaeologists and linguists currently agree that its community more or less coincides with the Lapita culture.