Dialects
Sakao has undergone considerable phonological decay and innovations, which make it utterly unintelligible to its closely related neighbours of Espiritu Santo. Thus for instance, comparing the following words with their cognates in its close relative Tolomako:
| sakao | tolomako | |
|---|---|---|
| "louse" | nøð | na ɣutu |
| "chicken" | nɔð | na toa |
| "four" | jɛð | βati |
| "to blow" | hy | suβi |
The main dialects 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 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 diphthonguization of some word-final vowels
Thus for instance Port-Olry has /œmœɣœɛ/ "fog, mist" where Hog-Harbour has /nmɣœ/.
Unless otherwise indicated, examples given here are in the Northern, Port-Olry, dialect.
Read more about this topic: Sakao Language