Tolomako language

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Tolomako
Spoken in:	Vanuatu
Region:	Big Bay, Espiritu Santo Island
Total speakers:	less than 500
Language family:	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Central Eastern Eastern Oceanic Central-Eastern Remote Oceanic North and Central Northeast West Santo Tolomako
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	`map`
ISO 639-3:	`tlm`
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Tolomako is a language of the Oceanic subgroup of Austronesian languages. It is spoken on Santo island in Vanuatu. It distinguishes four numbers for its personal pronouns: singular, dual, trial, plural. Its verbs have no tense or aspect marking, but two moods, realis and irrealis. Substantives and numerals also have the same two moods. E.g.

na	tatsua	mo	tea	mo	tsoa
realis	person	realis	one	realis	not to be

Someone is missing

te	tatsua	i	tea	mo	tsoa
irrealis	person	irrealis	one	realis	not to be

There is nobody.

Tolomako is characterized by having dentals where the mother language had labials before front vowels. It shares this feature with Sakao, but not with its very close dialect Tsureviu. Thus:

Tolomako	Tsureviu
tei	pei	"water"
nata	mata	"eye"

When labials do occur preceding front vowels they seem to be reflexes of older labiovelars:

Tolomako	Tsureviu
pei	pei	"good"
mata	mata	"snake"

Compare with Fijian ŋata "snake" (spelt gata).

It has been speculated that Tolomako is a very simplified daughter-language or pidgin of the neighboring language Sakao.^[who?] However, Tolomako is more likely a sister language of Sakao, not a pidgin. It cannot be phonologically derived from Sakao, whereas Sakao can be from Tolomako to some extent. Comparing Tolomako with its close dialect of Tsureviu allows to reconstruct an earlier state, from which most of Sakao can be regularly derived. This earlier state is very close to what can be reconstructed of Proto-Vanuatu. Thus Tolomako is a very conservative language, whereas Sakao has undergone drastic innovations in its phonology and grammar, both in the direction of increased complexity.