| Ske | |
|---|---|
| Spoken in | Vanuatu |
| Region | Pentecost island |
| Native speakers | 600 (date missing) |
| Language family | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | ske |
Ske (or Seke) is an endangered language of south-western Pentecost island in Vanuatu. Ske belongs to the East Vanuatu languages, a branch of the Austronesian languages family.
The Ske area comprises fourteen small villages centred around Bwaravet in south-western Pentecost, from Levizendam in the north to Hotwata in the south and extending inland to Vanliamit. Historically the language's area extended to parallel areas of the east coast, but this part of the island is now depopulated.
Due to intermarriage between language areas, an increasing number of people in Ske-speaking villages now speak Apma, Sa or Bislama as a first language, and local chiefs fear for the future of Ske. A closely related neighbouring language, Sowa, has already been totally displaced by Apma.
The number of Ske speakers was estimated at 600 in the year 2000, although this may be an overestimate, since not everybody in the Ske area is fluent in the language.
There is no significant dialectal variation within modern Ske, although there are noticeable differences between the Ske of older and younger speakers. Doltes, the extinct dialect of Hotwata village, is sometimes regarded as a Ske dialect, but appears to have been closer to Sa.
There is no local tradition of writing in Ske, and until recently the language was virtually undocumented. However, linguist Kay Johnson of SOAS is currently studying the language. Prior to her arrival, the only records of Ske were short vocabulary lists collected by David Walsh in the 1960s, Catriona Hyslop in 2001 and Andrew Gray in 2007.
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The consonants of Ske are b, d, g, h, k, l, m, n, ng (as in English "singer"), ngg (prenasalized g, which may be written as g with a macron), p, r, s, t, bilabial v, w, z, and labiovelar bw, mw, pw and vw.
Geminate consonants occur where two identical consonants have been brought together by the historical loss of an intervening vowel, for example in -kkas "to be sweet" (compare Sowa kakas).
Prenasalization of consonants occurs, so that b is pronounced mb, and d is pronounced nd.
Unlike neighbouring languages such as Apma, Ske permits a variety of voiced consonants to occur at the end of syllables, although when they occur at the end of an utterance they are often followed by an 'echo' of the previous vowel. Thus ingg "you", for example, is often pronounced inggi.
In addition to the five standard vowels (a, e, i, o and u), Ske has mid-high vowels ê (intermediate between e and i) and ô (intermediate between o and u), like in Sowa and Sa languages. Vowels do not appear to be distinguished for length.
As in Pentecost's other languages, syllables ending with a consonant take stress in precedence to other syllables. In Ske this usually results in stress falling on the final syllable of a word.
A notable characteristic of Ske is the dropping of unstressed vowels. For example, the word "its eye" is usually realized in Ske as mzan (although in some phrases it is mezn). Dropping of vowels in Ske has resulted in a language rich in consonants, in contrast to related languages such as Raga.
Due to the presence of consonant clusters within syllables and other phonological features not typical of East Vanuatu languages, speakers of neighbouring languages consider Ske difficult to speak and learn.
Basic word order in Ske is subject–verb–object.
Personal pronouns are distinguished by person and number. They are not distinguished by gender. The basic pronouns are:
| Person | Ske | English |
|---|---|---|
| 1st person singular | nô | "me" |
| 2nd person singular | ingg | "you" (singular) |
| 3rd person singular | ni | "him / her / it" |
| 1st person dual (inclusive) | indaru | "us" (you and me, two of us) |
| 1st person dual (exclusive) | nggmwamaru | "us" (me and another) |
| 2nd person dual | nggmiaru | "you (two)" |
| 3rd person dual | niêraru | "them (two)" |
| 1st person plural (inclusive) | ind | "us" (you and me) |
| 1st person plural (exclusive) | ngmwam | "us" (me and others) |
| 2nd person plural | nggmi | "you" (plural) |
| 3rd person plural | niêr | "them" |
Nouns in Ske are generally not preceded by articles. Plurality is indicated by placing the pronoun niêr ("them") or a number after the noun.
Nouns may be either free, or directly possessed. Directly possessed nouns are suffixed to indicate whom an item belongs to. For example:
Possession may also be indicated by the use of possessive classifiers, separate words that occur before or after the noun and take possessive suffixes. These classifiers are:
The possessive suffixes are as follows:
| Person | Ske | English |
|---|---|---|
| 1st person singular | -ngg | "of mine" |
| 2nd person singular | -m | "of yours" (singular) |
| 3rd person singular | -n | "of his/hers/its" |
| 1st person dual (inclusive) | -ndiaru | "of ours" (yours and mine, two of us) |
| 1st person dual (exclusive) | -mwaru | "of ours" (mine and another's) |
| 2nd person dual | -miaru | "of yours" (two of you) |
| 3rd person dual | -raru | "of theirs" (two of them) |
| 1st person plural (inclusive) | -nd | "of ours" (yours and mine) |
| 1st person plural (exclusive) | -mwam | "of ours" (mine and others') |
| 2nd person plural | -mi | "of yours" (plural) |
| 3rd person plural | -r | "of theirs" |
| Generic | -nggze | - |
A verb may be transformed into a noun by the addition of a nominalising suffix -an:
Modifiers generally come after a noun:
Verbs are preceded by markers providing information on the subject and the tense, aspect and mood of an action. In idealised form, these verb markers are:
| Person | Subject marker - imperfective (present tense) |
Subject marker - perfective (past tense) |
Subject marker - irrealis (future tense) |
English |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st person singular | mwa | ni | mwande | "I" |
| 2nd person singular | kmwê | ki | ti | "you" (singular) |
| 3rd person singular | m or mwe | a | de | "he" / "she" / "it" |
| 1st person dual (inclusive) | ta | kra | tra | "we" (you and I, two of us) |
| 1st person dual (exclusive) | mwamra | mwara | mwandra | "we" (another and I) |
| 2nd person dual | mwira or mwria | kria | dria | "you" (two) |
| 3rd person dual | mra or bra or bria | ara | dra | "they" (two) |
| 1st person plural (inclusive) | pe | kve | tve | "we" (you and I) |
| 1st person plural (exclusive) | mwambe | mwave | mwandve | "we" (others and I) |
| 2nd person plural | bi | kvie | dvie | "you" (plural) |
| 3rd person plural | be | ave | dve | "they" |
In practice, speakers' usage of certain markers may differ slightly from this paradigm, with ti "you" often being used in the past tense as well as the future, for example.
There is a pattern of verb-consonant mutation whereby v at the start of a verb changes to b, and vw to bw. This mutation occurs in imperfective aspect (present tense), and in irrealis mood (future tense):
(Among a few older speakers there is also mutation of z to d, but most Ske speakers today use only the d forms.)
Hypothetical phrases are marked with mô:
Negative phrases are preceded by kare ("not"), or a variant:
Transitive and intransitive verb forms are distinguished. Transitive verbs are commonly suffixed with -nê:
Ske makes extensive use of stative verbs for descriptive purposes.
Ske has a copular verb, vê or bê.
Verbs in Ske can be linked together in serial verb constructions.
| English | Ske |
|---|---|
| Where are you going? | Kmwê mba êmbeh? |
| I'm going to... | Mwa mba... |
| Where have you come from? | Ki me êmbeh? |
| I've come from... | Ni me... |
| Where is it? | Mdu êmbeh? |
| It's here | Mdu ene |
| Come here! | Ti me ene! |
| Go away! | Ti suk! |
| What's your name? | Siam ne siên? |
| My name is... | Siangg ne... |
| Where are you from? | Ingg azô ze êmbeh? |
| I am from... | Nô azô ze... |
| How much? / How many? | Avih? |
| one | alvwal |
| two | aru |
| three | aziôl |
| four | aviêt |
| five | alim |
| Thank you | Kmwê mbariêv |
| It's just fine | Ambis ngge |