The Sko or Skou languages are a small
language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in h ...
spoken by about 7000 people, mainly along the
Vanimo
Vanimo is the capital of Sandaun Province (West Sepik) in north-westernmost Papua New Guinea and of Vanimo-Green River District. It is located on a peninsula close to the border with Indonesia.
Religion
Its Holy Cross Pro-Cathedral is the epi ...
coast of
Sandaun Province
Sandaun Province (formerly West Sepik Province) is the northwesternmost mainland province of Papua New Guinea. It covers an area of 35,920 km2 (13868 m2) and has a population of 248,411 (2011 census). The capital is Vanimo. In July 1998 the a ...
in
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...
, with a few being inland from this area and at least one just across the border in the Indonesian province of
Papua (formerly known as Irian Jaya).
Typology
Tone
Skou languages are unusual among
Papuan languages
The Papuan languages are the non- Austronesian and non- Australian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, as well as neighbouring islands, by around 4 million people. It is a strictly geogr ...
for being tonal; all Skou languages possess contrastive
tone.
Vanimo
Vanimo is the capital of Sandaun Province (West Sepik) in north-westernmost Papua New Guinea and of Vanimo-Green River District. It is located on a peninsula close to the border with Indonesia.
Religion
Its Holy Cross Pro-Cathedral is the epi ...
, for example, has three tones, ''high, mid, low.''
Example
minimal sets illustrating tonal contrasts in various Skou languages:
*
I’saka: ''ẽy''
H ‘louse’, ''wey''
L ‘butterfly’, ''wey''
LH ‘house’, ''wey''
HL ‘language’
*
Barupu: ''e''
H ‘tooth’, ''e''
L ‘garden’, ''e''
HL ‘mosquito’, ''e''
HLH ‘write’
*
Wutung: ''ho''
H ‘roof thatch made from
sago palm
Sago palm is a common name for several plants which are used to produce a starchy food known as sago. Sago palms may be "true palms" in the family Arecaceae, or cycads with a palm-like appearance. Sago produced from cycads must be detoxified before ...
fronds’, ''ho''
L ‘star’, ''ho''
HL ‘grease’
*
Skou: ''ta''
H ‘grass’, ''ta''
L ‘hair’, ''ta''
HL ‘arrow’
Lakes Plain languages, spoken in a discontiguous area to the southwest, are also tonal. Because of the apparent phonological similarities and sharing of stable basic words such as ‘louse’, Foley speculates the potential likelihood of a distant relationship shared between the Skou and Lakes Plain families, but no formal proposals linking the two families have been made due to insufficient evidence.
Additionally according to Foley, based on some lexical and phonological similarities, the
Keuw language (currently classified as a language isolate) may also possibly share a deep relationship with the Lakes Plain languages. Like the Lakes Plain languages, Keuw also possesses constrative tone.
Lepki,
Kaure, and
Kembra, spoken in mountainous inland regions of the Indonesia-PNG border to the southwest of the Skou-speaking area, are also tonal.
Morphology
Skou languages can be
isolating or
polysynthetic.
*Isolating structure:
Dumo, an Inner Skou language
*Polysynthetic structure:
Barupu, a Piore River language
Classification
Skou languages were first linked by G. Frederici in 1912. In 1941, K.H. Thomas expanded the family to its current extent.
The Sko family is not accepted by
Søren Wichmann
Søren Wichmann (born 1964) is a Danish linguist specializing in historical linguistics, linguistic typology, Mesoamerican languages, and epigraphy. Since June 2016, he has been employed as a University Lecturer at Leiden University Centre for Li ...
(2013), who splits it into two separate groups.
[Wichmann, Søren. 2013]
A classification of Papuan languages
In: Hammarström, Harald and Wilco van den Heuvel (eds.), History, contact and classification of Papuan languages (Language and Linguistics in Melanesia, Special Issue 2012), 313–386. Port Moresby: Linguistic Society of Papua New Guinea.
Donohue (2007) and Donohue and Crowther (2005) list
Nouri as a mixed language having features of both the Piore River and Serra Hills subgroups.
Sko (Laycock 1975)
Laycock posited two branches, Vanimo and Krisa:
*Vanimo branch –
Skou,
Sangke (Nyao),
Wutung,
Vanimo
Vanimo is the capital of Sandaun Province (West Sepik) in north-westernmost Papua New Guinea and of Vanimo-Green River District. It is located on a peninsula close to the border with Indonesia.
Religion
Its Holy Cross Pro-Cathedral is the epi ...
(Dumo)
*Krisa branch –
I’saka (Krisa),
Rawo,
Puari,
Barupu (Warapu)
Skou (Ross 2005)
However, Krisa is poorly supported and
Malcolm Ross abandoned it,
*
I’saka (Krisa)
*
Barupu (Warapu)
*
Puari
*
Rawo
*
Womo
*Vanimo branch:
Skou (Tumawo),
Leitre,
Sangke (Nyao),
Wutung,
Vanimo
Vanimo is the capital of Sandaun Province (West Sepik) in north-westernmost Papua New Guinea and of Vanimo-Green River District. It is located on a peninsula close to the border with Indonesia.
Religion
Its Holy Cross Pro-Cathedral is the epi ...
(Dumo),
Dusur
Macro-Skou (Donohue 2002)
Mark Donohue proposed a subclassification based on
areal diffusion he called ''Macro-Skou''.
*
Isaka
Isaka is a small town and station on the narrow-gauge Mwanza railway line of Tanzania which connects to the seaport of Dar es Salaam.
Transport
It is located in Kahama Rural District of Shinyanga Region. In the 1980s a dry port was establ ...
*Skou–Serra–Piore
linkage
**Piore River:
Nori
Nori is a dried edible seaweed used in Japanese cuisine, made from species of the red algae genus '' Pyropia'', including ''P. yezonesis'' and '' P. tenera''. It has a strong and distinctive flavor, and is often used to wrap rolls of sushi or ...
(strongly influenced by Womo),
Barupu
**Serra Hills
***
Puare
***Rawo – Main Serra:
Rawo,
Womo
** Skou (Vanimo) family
***
Skou
***Eastern Skou / Vanimo
****
Leitre
****West Coast
*****Border:
Nyao,
Wutung
*****Vanimo proper:
Dumo,
Dusur
Donohue (2004) notes that is unclear if extinct
Nouri is in the Piore River or Serra Hills branch.
Sko (Foley 2018)
Foley (2018) provides the following classification.
Foley's ''Inner Sko'' corresponds to Donohue's ''Western Skou''.
Miller (2017)
The ''
Piore River'' branch was renamed ''Lagoon'' in Miller (2017). The older names of the Piore River languages were from village names; Miller has since renamed them as Bauni, Uni, Bouni, and Bobe, though it is debatable whether they are all distinct languages.
Lagoon (also ''
Piore River'')
*
Bauni (Poo and Barapu/Warapu villages)
*
Uni (Ramo village)
*
Bouni (Sumo village)
*
Bobe (Nouri village)
Usher (2020)
Usher groups the languages as follows, with each node being a reconstructable clade, and giving the family a geographic label rather than naming it after a single language. The Eastern languages are typologically quite distinct from the Western languages and I'saka.
Pronouns
The pronouns Ross reconstructs for proto-Skou are,
:
The Skou languages also have a
dual, with a distinction between
inclusive and exclusive we
In linguistics, clusivity is a grammatical distinction between ''inclusive'' and ''exclusive'' first-person pronouns and verbal morphology, also called ''inclusive " we"'' and ''exclusive "we"''. Inclusive "we" specifically includes the addressee ...
, but the forms are not reconstructable for the proto-language.
Pronouns in individual Skou languages:
:
Cognates
Sko family cognates (
I'saka,
Barupu,
Wutung,
Skou) listed by
Foley (2018):
:
A cognate set for 'louse' in Sko languages (reconstructing roughly to *nipi in Proto-Sko) as compiled by Dryer (2022):
:
Vocabulary comparison
The following basic vocabulary words are from Voorhoeve (1971, 1975),
[Voorhoeve, C.L. "Miscellaneous Notes on Languages in West Irian, New Guinea". In Dutton, T., Voorhoeve, C. and Wurm, S.A. editors, ''Papers in New Guinea Linguistics'' No. 14. A-28:47-114. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1971. ][Voorhoeve, C.L. ''Languages of Irian Jaya: Checklist. Preliminary classification, language maps, wordlists''. B-31, iv + 133 pages. Pacific Linguistics, The Australian National University, 1975. ] as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database.
More recent data from Marmion (2010)
has been added for
Wutung and from Donohue (2002)
(as cited in the
ASJP Database) for
Skou.
:
See also
*
Papuan languages
The Papuan languages are the non- Austronesian and non- Australian languages spoken on the western Pacific island of New Guinea in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, as well as neighbouring islands, by around 4 million people. It is a strictly geogr ...
References
*
*
External links
Skou languages database at TransNewGuinea.org
{{language families
Language families
Northwest Papuan languages
Languages of Sandaun Province