Sakao language

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Sakao is a language of the Oceanic subgroup of Austronesian languages. It is spoken on the northeast horn of Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu. It is named after Sakao Island, an islet off the northeastern shore of Espiritu Santo, almost opposite Port-Olry. However, this is not the native name of that island, which is called Laðhi by Sakao speakers. It is likely that an early explorer asked his non-Sakao speaking guide "What do you call that island?" and the guide answered "sakao," which means "island" in many Austronesian languages.

[edit] Dialects

Sakao has undergone considerable phonological decay and innovations, which make it utterly unintelligible to its closely related neighbours of Espiritu Santo. Thus for instance, comparing it with its close relative Tolomako:

Sak.		Tol.
nøð		na ɣutu		"louse"
nɔð		na toa		"chicken"
jɛð		βati		"four"
hy		suβi		"to blow"

The main dialects of Sakao are Northern, or Port-Olry dialect, and Southern, or Hog-Harbour dialect. The Southern dialect is the more conservative one. It is characterized by the loss of most pretonic and posttonic vowels, resulting in consonant clusters unusual for an Oceanic language. The Northern dialect is characterized by its extensive use of epenthetic vowels, which have achieved phonemic status, resulting in what looks superficially like vowel harmony; the loss of the initial 'n' of nouns, except in monosyllabic nouns (this n being a reflex of the common Austronesian article na, fused to the nouns in Sakao); and the diphthonguization of some word-final vowels

Thus for instance Port-Olry has œmœγœɛ "fog, mist" where Hog-Harbour has nmγœ.

Unless otherwise indicated, examples given here are in the Northern, Port-Olry, dialect.

[edit] Number

Like Tolomako, Sakao distinguishes four numbers for its personal pronouns. However, they are not singular, dual, trial, plural, but singular, dual, paucal, plural. The Sakao paucal derives from the Tolomako trial, thus Tolomako i γire-tolu "they three", Sakao jørðœl "they, from three to ten" (ðœl is regularly derivable from tolu). One says in Sakao jørðœl løn "the five of them" which is, etymologically, "they three, five."

Substantives are not inflected for number, except kinship terms which distinguish singular and plural: ðjœγ "my mother/aunt," rðjœγ "my aunts;" walðyγ "my child," raalðyγ "my children." Likewise all demonstratives (pronouns, adjectives, even locatives): wa "this one," warɨr "these ones;" aðœŋœn mam "this person," aðœŋœn mamɨr "these persons;" ðað "here," ðaðɨr "in several places around here."