Oceania, Australia, and New Zealand

![CDATA[The geographic area of "Oceania" includes all of the more than 10 000 islands of the Pacific Ocean bounded by Rapa Nui in the east, Hawai'i to the north, Aotearoa/New Zealand to the south, and the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea to the west. Prior to European contact, there were an estimated 1400 languages in Oceania which were categorized into three language families: Austronesian, Australian, and Papuan. Song cycles from other parts of Australia that were rendered into English less transparently in earlier times helped create an Australian literature that was able to draw on Aboriginal influences. Literary nationalism in New Zealand bears many resemblances to what has been called the Golden Nineties in Australia, 40 years before. For much of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, Australia and New Zealand were part of the same literary culture.]]