Kéo orNagé-Kéo is aMalayo-Polynesiandialect cluster spoken by theKéo (ʼata Kéo) andNage peoples that reside in an area southeast of theEbulobo volcano in the south-central part ofNusa Tenggara Timur Province on the island ofFlores, easternIndonesia, largely in the eponymousNagekeo Regency.

Kéo belongs to theMalayo-Polynesian, Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian, Bima-Lembata subgroups of the Austronesian language family and there are approximately 40,000 speakers.^[2]

Kéo is sometimes referred to asNage-Kéo,Nage being the name of a neighboring ethnic group that is generally considered culturally distinct from Kéo; however, whether or not the two languages are separate entities is ambivalent.^[3]

Uncommon to Austronesian languages, Kéo is a highlyisolating language that lacksinflectional morphology or clear morphological derivation. Instead it relies more heavily onlexical andsyntactic grammatical processes.^[4]

Kéo (referred to locally assara kita "our language" orsara ndai "the language here" as well asBahasa Bajawa "the Bajawa language" inIndonesian) has distinct dialectal variation between villages. Kéo speakers are able to determine where someone is from based on pronunciation and word use.^[5]

Overall, the attitude towards Kéo by its speakers is unfavorable. It is considered more economically beneficial to speak Indonesian or English. Despite this sentiment, a sense of respect for the language remains through its oral traditions.^[6]

The Kéo spoken in the village of Udiworowatu (where the majority of data has been collected on the language) has a phonemic inventory of 23consonants.

• There is a four-waystop distinction formanner of articulation: voiceless (unaspirated), voiced, preglottalised and prenasalised. This is atypical for an Austronesian language.^[7]
• Kéo does not have a contrastive distinction betweenbilabial andlabio-dental; hence the termlabial has been used for theplace of articulation.^[8]

Kéo has six vowel phonemes.^[9]

In Kéo there are seven standardpronoun forms that form aclosed word class.^[10]

Kéo pronouns have the same form irrespective of their syntactic behaviour. They can function as independent pronouns, as subjects, objects or aspossessors. There are also nogrammatical gender distinctions.^[10]

In the examples below, the first-person singular pronounnga’o is used across four different scenarios: as the subject of anintransitive verb (1), as the subject of atransitive verb (2), as an object, (3) and in the possessor slot of a possessive construction (4).

Examples:^[11]

The alternate pronoun forms in Kéo areja’o,miu,kita andsira. Their usage can depend on dialectal variants, politeness andtaboo avoidance rules and specificity with quantity of people involved in the utterance.^[12]

J’ao is an alternate pronoun fornga’o in the first person singular. In the past, the two terms were used as a dialect-identifying feature for the Kéo-speaking areas. Nowadays, both pronouns are used and personal preference appears to dictate usage. It has also been noted that a child will apply the term that is used by their mother.^[12]

In an example from a Kéo storyteller, both first-person pronoun forms are used stylistically to distinguish the main characters during a passage of direct speech, Wodo Bakonga’o and the sorcererja’o. This distinction can reflect the storyteller's partiality towards a character depending on which form they themselves identify with.^[13]

Examples:^[13]

Miu as shown in the 'standard' pronoun form table above is used to address more than one person yet it can also be used to show a level of respect and politeness when speaking to someone.

Example:^[14]

Kita is the pronoun used for first-person pluralinclusive. In some caseskita is used to replacekami (first personal pluralexclusive) when talking about belongings or possession. This switch in pronoun to include all addressees makes the speaker appear more community-minded and generous opposed to being arrogant or selfish.^[14]

Example:^[14]

Sira is the archaic third-person pronoun plural form that can replace the standard second- and third-person pronounskay and‘imi.Sira is used toavoid certain taboos in Kéo culture that include addressing parents-in-law or people held in high regard. Sira is also used when addressing a large group of people.^[15]

Kéo pronouns can be followed by numerals to indicate the exact number of referents. The pronoun-numeral sequence is the only time a number can be used without aclassifier. The most common numeral used isrua 'two' (9) to createdual pronouns,^[15] yet it is also acceptable to use any other numeral (10).

Examples:^[15]

Personal pronouns replaceproper nouns or other nouns, and form aclosed word class. They are highly dependent on context, and are used to indicate if one is referring to the speaker, listener, etc. (Baird, 2002, pp. 108).^[16]

There are five subclasses of nouns; 1)common nouns, 2) kin terms, 3) place names, 4) personal names and 5) personal pronouns (Baird, 2002, pp. 101–102).^[16] Thus, unlikeEnglish, wherepronouns are an independent part of the language, personal pronouns are included under the noun class in Kéo (Baird, 2002, pp. 97).^[16] Furthermore, all five of these subclasses, including personal pronouns, may be used as nominalpredicates (Baird, 2002, pp. 101).^[16]

In Kéo, there is no change in the personal pronoun, even if they are independent pronouns,subjects,objects,possessors, etc. (Baird, 2002, pp. 108).^[16] However, first, second, third, (andsingular andplural forms) have differences, and the first person plural pronoun has an inclusive and exclusive form. Apart from the first and second person singular pronoun, pronouns may be followed by numbers to quantify the pronoun. Gender is also not differentiated in Kéo pronouns (Baird, 2002, pp. 109).^[16]

• First personpronouns

The standard forms of first-person singularpronouns arenga'o; which is first-person singular,kita; first-person plural inclusive, andkami; first-personplural exclusive. This can be used to expressI,me,my, etc. (Baird, 2002, pp. 110).^[16] For example:

• Second-personpronouns

The standard forms of second-person singularpronouns arekau; which is second-personsingular andmiu; second-personplural. This can be used to expressyou,your, etc. (Baird, 2002, pp. 110).^[16] For example:

• Third-personpronouns

The standard forms of third-personsingularpronouns are’imu; which is third-personsingular and’imu ko'o; third-personplural. This can be used ashe,her, etc. (Baird, 2002, pp. 110).^[16] For example:

A sentence can also be made to be less ambiguous by using’imu possessively. (Baird, 2002, pp. 328).^[16] In other words, using a pronoun in this way can make the meaning of a sentence clearer to the listener:

As seen in the examples (Baird, 2002, pp. 328)^[16] above, 2) clarifies the meaning of 1) with the addition of’imu, as it shows the beard is Peter’s beard.

Below is an example of both a first-person singular pronoun and a third-person singular pronoun being used in the same sentence:

There are also alternate forms of personal pronouns, which are used for different reasons. There are three main reasons as to why alternatepronouns are used. Firstly, alternate pronouns may be used to indicate politeness, or to avoid social taboo. Secondly, they may be used based on dialect variations. Lastly, certain pronouns are used to identify the exact number of people there are in the situation being described or talked about (Baird, 2002, pp. 111).^[16] Baird (2002)^[16] highlighted four alternate forms of personal pronouns used in Kéo;ja'o,miu,kita, andsira (Baird, 2002, pp. 111–114).^[16]

The first alternate form,ja'o, is an alternate form of the first-person singular pronoun,nga'o (standard form). Initially, each dialect group used either one exclusively, and was a way to identify which Kéo -speaking area one was from. However, the use of the standard and alternate form of the pronoun no longer has this ability to establish one’s dialect group (Baird, 2002, pp. 111).^[16] This will be further discussed below inRegional Varieties.

The second alternate form ismiu. It is often used in reference to more than one person, but can also be used to address one person as anhonorific. (Baird, 2002, pp. 112).^[16] For example:

The third alternate form iskita (Baird, 2002, pp. 113).^[16] As mentioned above, first-person plural pronouns have an exclusive and inclusive form in Kéo (Baird, 2002, pp. 110).^[16] However, the alternate and inclusive form,kita, frequently replaceskami (the exclusive form). Using the inclusive form (kita) instead of the exclusive form (kami) helps the speaker to seem more generous and selfless, as they are including the listener in their speech. Especially when discussing property and personal possessions, the speaker can sound less arrogant by using the inclusive term instead of the exclusive term. (Baird, 2002, pp. 113).^[16] For example:

Another example which shows the importance of inclusivity in Kéo is where Kéo is often referred to as 'our language' (sara kita) instead of justKéo. (Baird, 2002, pp. 9).^[16]

The last alternate form of personal pronouns highlighted by Baird (2002) issira. This pronoun may be used instead of second- and third-person pronouns. The main reasonsira is used is as anhonorific. It is often used to greet people, and to refer to in-laws or others as a sign of respect. Thus, one would usesira instead of’imu-ko’o (Baird, 2002, pp. 114).^[16]Kin terms, which is what identifies the relationship between speakers (Baird, 2002, pp. 105),^[16] are also preferred when addressing in-laws, to establish a close relationship. Thus,sira would be used more often than more polite pronouns such asmiu (Baird, 2002, pp. 113–114).^[16]

• Regional varieties

Pronouns help to differentiate dialects. In the past, the difference in the first person singular pronounja’o andnga’o helped to establish this difference. However, in present times intermarriages between different dialect groups have dissolved these boundaries. Instead, which first person singular pronoun is used is up to personal preference (Baird, 2002, pp. 28).^[16] Apart from personal preference, many Kéo speakers have the tendency to follow the form that their mother uses, (Baird, 2002, pp. 111)^[16] while some adopt the form that their in-laws use after marriage (Baird, 2002, pp. 112).^[16]

There are two types:^[16]

1. possessive particle is used to link noun phrases. (Eg.'Aé ko'o kami(water-POSS-1st plural exclusive) ('our water'))
2. possessor can either be a noun phrase or a pronoun. (Eg.Bapa kami(father-1st plural exclusive) ('our father'))

There are two negators in Kéo,mona andnggedhé. These negators are synonymous.Negators can precede the predicate, be predicates themselves, and be interjections.^[16]

• Sumba languages
• Languages of Indonesia
• Isolating languages

• Language articles citing Ethnologue 22
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