| Sahu | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Indonesia |
| Region | Halmahera |
Native speakers | (7,500 excluding Waioli and Gamkonora cited 1987)[1] (12,000 cited in 1987)[2] |
West Papuan?
| |
| Dialects |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Either:saj – Sahuibu – Ibu |
| Glottolog | sahu1245 Sahuibuu1240 Ibu |
| ELP | Ibu |
Sahu (Sa’u, Sahu’u, Sau) is aNorth Halmahera language. Use is vigorous; dialects are Pa’disua (Palisua), Tala’i,Waioli, andGamkonora. A fifth dialect, Ibu, used to be spoken near the mouth of the Ibu River.[2] Ethnologue considers Waioli and Gamkonora to be separate languages.
Sahu has manyTernate loanwords, a historical legacy of the dominance of theTernate Sultanate in theMoluccas.[3]
Source:[2]
Sahu, like other North Halmahera languages, is not atonal language.
| Labial | Alveolar | Palato- alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | |||
| Plosive/ Affricate | voiceless | p | t | tʃ | k | ʔ | |
| voiced | b | d | dʒ | ɡ | |||
| implosive | ɓ | ɗ | ʄ | ɠ | |||
| Fricative | f | s | |||||
| Approximant | central | w | j | h | |||
| lateral | l | ||||||
| Trill | r | ||||||
When preceding /a/, /o/, and /u/, the consonants /d/, /ɗ/, and /l/ become retroflex (/ɖ/,/ᶑ/, and/ɭ/, respectively). The trill /r/alternates freely with/ɾ/, but, according to Visser and Voorhoeve,/r/ is the more usual allophone. The glottal /h/ may be realized as/χ/ by educated speakers for certain words deriving fromArabic.
| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | i | u | ||
| Mid | e | ə | o | |
| Low | a | |||
The phoneme /ə/ is only found in loans (primarily from Indonesian).
ThisPapuan languages–related article is astub. You can help Wikipedia byexpanding it. |
