Sakao, locally known as Lathi or Laðhi, is an uninhabited island in
Vanuatu
Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (; ), is an island country in Melanesia located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of northern Australia, northeast of New Caledonia, east o ...
. It is located off the northeastern shore of Vanuatu's largest island
Espiritu Santo
Espiritu Santo (, ; ) is the largest island in the nation of Vanuatu, with an area of and a population of around 40,000 according to the 2009 census.
Geography
The island belongs to the archipelago of the New Hebrides in the Pacific region ...
in
Sanma Province
Sanma is a province located in the Northern part of the nation of Vanuatu, occupying the nation's largest island, Espiritu Santo, which is located approximately 2,500 km northeast of Sydney, Australia.
The name Sanma is derived from the ...
, and off the southeastern shore of Vanuatu's second-largest island,
Malakula
Malakula, also spelled Malekula, is the second-largest island in the nation of Vanuatu, formerly the New Hebrides, in Melanesia, a region of the Pacific Ocean.
Location
Malakula is separated from the islands of Espiritu Santo and Malo Island, Ma ...
. The island has given its name to the
Sakao language
Sakao (also Nkep or Nekep) is an Oceanic language spoken on the northeast horn of Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu.
Name
Sakao is the name of the language as used by foreigners and linguists. It is named after Sakao Island, an islet off the northeaste ...
, spoken in the nearby area of
Port-Olry.
Name
The name ''Sakao'' is an
exonym
An endonym (also known as autonym ) is a common, name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place, language, or dialect, meaning that it is used inside a particular group or linguistic community to identify or designate them ...
meaning "coral reef", from
Proto-Oceanic
Proto-Oceanic (abbreviated as POc) is a proto-language that comparative linguistics, historical linguists since Otto Dempwolff have reconstructed as the hypothetical common ancestor of the Oceanic languages, Oceanic subgroup of the Austronesian ...
''*sakaRu''. The native name ''Lathi'' or ''Laðhi'' comes from a
Sakao word, of unknown origin.
See also
*
List of islands of Vanuatu
This is a list of islands of Vanuatu by provinces of Vanuatu, province, largely from north to south, subdivided by archipelago when appropriate. Vanuatu is usually said to contain 83 islands.
Islands
*Torba Province
**Torres Islands
***Hiw (i ...
References
Islands of Vanuatu
Sanma Province
Uninhabited islands of Vanuatu
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