Sakao (also Nkep or Nekep) is an
Oceanic language
The approximately 450 Oceanic languages are a branch of the Austronesian languages. The area occupied by speakers of these languages includes Polynesia, as well as much of Melanesia and Micronesia. Though covering a vast area, Oceanic languages ...
spoken on the northeast horn of
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 o ...
,
Vanuatu
Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (french: link=no, République de Vanuatu; bi, Ripablik blong Vanuatu), is an island country located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of no ...
.
Name
Sakao is the name of the language as used by foreigners and linguists. It is named after
Sakao Island, an islet off the northeastern shore of
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 o ...
, almost opposite Port-Olry. (Incidentally, this is not the native name of that island, which is called ''Laðhi'' by Sakao speakers. The name ''sakau'' means ‘coral reef’ in various languages of Vanuatu, but it is unknown exactly which one gave its name to the island.)
The speakers of Sakao refer to their own language using various names, depending on the variety considered.
Dialects
Sakao has undergone considerable phonological change and innovations, which make it utterly unintelligible to its closely related neighbours of Espiritu Santo. Thus for instance, comparing the following words with their
cognate
In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymology, etymological ancestor in a proto-language, common parent language. Because language c ...
s in its close relative
Tolomako:
The main
dialect
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of Linguistics, linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety (linguisti ...
s 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
In phonology, epenthesis (; Greek language, Greek ) means the addition of one or more sounds to a word, especially in the beginning syllable (''prothesis (linguistics), prothesis'') or in the ending syllable (''paragoge'') or in-between two syll ...
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 diphthongization of some word-final vowels.
Thus for instance Port-Olry has "fog, mist" where Hog-Harbour has .
Unless otherwise indicated, examples given here are in the Northern, Port-Olry, dialect.
Phonology
In addition, Sakao has a close vowel that is unspecified for being rounded or unrounded, front or back, and is always unstressed. It also has the two
diphthong
A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech o ...
s , whereas Tolomako has none.
In addition, Sakao consonants may be long or short: "drum", "bed"
It is not clear if Sakao even has syllables; that is, whether trying to divide Sakao words into meaningful syllables is even possible. If it is, Sakao syllables would appear to be V (a vowel or diphthong) surrounded by any number of consonants: V "thou", CCVCCCC (?) "having sung and stopped singing thou kept silent"
2nd_pers.,__"to_sing",__perfective,__continuous.html" ;"title="perfective.html" ;"title="2nd pers., "to sing", perfective">2nd pers., "to sing", perfective, continuous">perfective.html" ;"title="2nd pers., "to sing", perfective">2nd pers., "to sing", perfective, continuous
Grammar
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: "my mother/aunt," "my aunts;" "my child," "my children." Likewise all demonstratives (pronouns, adjectives, even locatives): "this one," "these ones;" "this person," "these persons;" "here," "in several places around here."
Deixis
Sakao has seven degrees of
deixis
In linguistics, deixis (, ) is the use of general words and phrases to refer to a specific time, place, or person in context, e.g., the words ''tomorrow'', ''there'', and ''they''. Words are deictic if their semantic meaning is fixed but their de ...
.
Nouns
Sakao has
inalienably possessed nouns, many of which are irregularly inflected:
Here "mouth" is variably ' and "hair" variably ''.''
Syntax
Sakao has a suffix ' that increases the
valence of a verb (corresponding to
applicative suffixes in other languages): it makes
intransitive verb
In grammar, an intransitive verb is a verb whose context does not entail a direct object. That lack of transitivity distinguishes intransitive verbs from transitive verbs, which entail one or more objects. Additionally, intransitive verbs are ...
s transitive, and
transitive verb
A transitive verb is a verb that accepts one or more objects, for example, 'cleaned' in ''Donald cleaned the window''. This contrasts with intransitive verbs, which do not have objects, for example, 'panicked' in ''Donald panicked''.
Transitiv ...
s ditransitive. It the latter case, one argument may be the
direct object
In linguistics, an object is any of several types of arguments. In subject-prominent, nominative-accusative languages such as English, a transitive verb typically distinguishes between its subject and any of its objects, which can include but ...
and the other an instrument; the word order of the arguments is free, leaving context to disambiguate which is which:
This could also be '.
The Sakao strategy involves
polysynthetic
In linguistic typology, polysynthetic languages, formerly holophrastic languages, are highly synthetic languages, i.e. languages in which words are composed of many morphemes (word parts that have independent meaning but may or may not be able to ...
syntax, as opposed to the isolating syntax of its neighbor
Tolomako. For instance, the word 'pig' above could be
incorporated into the verb, leaving a single external argument:
Sakao polysynthesis can also involve compound verbs, each with its own instrument or object:
Here ' "the bow" is the instrumental of ' "to shoot", and ' "the sea" is the direct object of ' "to follow", which since they are combined into a single verb, are marked as
ditransitive
In grammar, a ditransitive (or bitransitive) verb is a transitive verb whose contextual use corresponds to a subject and two objects which refer to a theme and a recipient. According to certain linguistics considerations, these objects may be ca ...
with the suffix ''.'' Because ' "to shoot" has the
incorporated object ' "fish", the first consonant
geminates
In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from ''gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from s ...
for '; '','' being part of one word, then reduces to ''.''
*
Tolomako language, for parallels to the above in a closely related but grammatically simpler language
References
*
*
External links
* ELAR archive o
N'kep dialect of Sakao (north Vanuatu): Structure and variation*
Paradisec
The Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital Sources in Endangered Cultures (PARADISEC) is a cross-institutional project that supports work on endangered languages and cultures of the Pacific and the region around Australia. They digitise reel-to ...
has two collections of
Arthur Cappell's
AC1AC2 that include Sakao language materials
{{Austronesian languages
Languages of Vanuatu
Espiritu Santo languages