The Touo language, also known as ''Baniata'' (''Mbaniata'') or ''Lokuru'', is spoken over the southern part of
Rendova Island
Rendova is an island in the Western Province of the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific, east of Papua New Guinea.
Geography
Rendova Island is a roughly rectangularly-shaped island, located in the South Pacific in the New Georgia Islands. The ...
, located in the
Western Province
Western Province or West Province may refer to:
* Western Province, Cameroon
*Western Province, Rwanda
*Western Province (Kenya)
*Western Province (Papua New Guinea)
*Western Province (Solomon Islands)
*Western Province, Sri Lanka
*Western Provin ...
of the
Solomon Islands
Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its capit ...
.
Classification
Touo is generally seen to be a member of the tentative
Central Solomons family, although Glottolog considers it an
isolate
Isolate may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* ''Isolate'' (film), a 2013 Australian film
* ''Isolate'' (Circus Maximus album), 2007
* ''Isolate'' (Gary Numan album), 1992
Language
* Isolating language, with near-unity morpheme/word ...
. Pedrós (2015) cautiously suggests
Lavukaleve as the closest relative to Touo. Most of the surrounding languages to Touo belong to the
Oceanic subgroup of the
Austronesian language family.
Names
The Touo language is sometimes called the ''Baniata'' (''Mbaniata'') or ''Lokuru'' language, after the largest two villages where the language is spoken.
The word ''Touo'' comes from the
ethnonym that Touo speakers use to refer to themselves.
Phonology
Consonants
Touo consonants are:
:
Vowels
Touo vowels have phonemically contrastive tense/lax vowels. Some minimal pairs showing the tense/lax vowel phonemic distinction in Touo:
:
Grammar
Word order in Touo is SOV.
Touo has four genders.
*masculine
*feminine
*neuter I (generic)
*neuter II (certain trees)
Only in certain paradigms of the singular number can neuter I and II be distinguished.
Touo distinguishes four numbers.
*singular
*dual
*enumerated (i.e., numerically specified; can be used for both few or many numbers)
*non-enumerated (i.e., not numerically specified; used for numbers greater than three)
See also
*
Tetepare language
Tetepare is an extinct language of Tetepare Island. According to local oral history, the indigenous people of the now-uninhabited island of Tetepare spoke their own language, different from the other languages of the region.
Classification
Publ ...
Notes
* Paradisec has two collections of
Arthur Cappell's materials
AC1AC2
that include Touo language materials.
References
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Touo Language
Languages of the Solomon Islands
Western Province (Solomon Islands)
Central Solomon languages