Sakao
Wanohe, Nkep, Nekep
Native to	Vanuatu
Region	Big Bay,Espiritu Santo Island
Native speakers	4,000 (2001)[1]
Language family	Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Southern Oceanic North-Central Vanuatu North Vanuatu Espiritu Santo Sakao
Dialects	Nkep
Language codes
ISO 639-3	sku
Glottolog	saka1289
Sakao is not endangered according to the classification system of theUNESCOAtlas of the World's Languages in Danger
This article containsIPA phonetic symbols. Without properrendering support, you may seequestion marks, boxes, or other symbols instead ofUnicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA.

Sakao (alsoNkep orNekep) is anOceanic language spoken on the northeast horn ofEspiritu Santo,Vanuatu.

Sakao is the name of the language as used by foreigners and linguists. It is named afterSakao Island, an islet off the northeastern shore ofEspiritu Santo, almost opposite Port-Olry. (Incidentally, this is not the native name of that island, which is calledLaðhi by Sakao speakers. The namesakau <Proto-Oceanic*sakaRu means ‘coral reef’ in various languages of Vanuatu, but it is unknown exactly which one gave its name to the island.)

The speakers of Sakao refer to their own language using various names, depending on the variety considered.

Sakao has undergone considerable phonological change and innovations, which make it utterly unintelligible to its closely related neighbours of Espiritu Santo. Evidence from the two dialects, however, shows that the innovation happened recently, perhaps within the last millennium. Thus for instance, comparing the following words with theircognates in its close relativeTolomako:

The maindialects 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 ofepenthetic 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 diphthongization 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.

In addition, Sakao has a close vowel/ɨ/ that is unspecified for being rounded or unrounded, front or back, and is always unstressed. It also has the twodiphthongs/œɛ,ɒɔ/, whereas Tolomako has none.

In addition, Sakao consonants may be long or short:/œβe/ "drum",/œββe/ "bed"

It is not clear if Sakao even has syllables; that is, whether trying to divide Sakao words into meaningful syllables is even possible. If it is, Sakao syllables would appear to be V (a vowel or diphthong) surrounded by any number of consonants: V/i/ "thou", CCVCCCC (?)/mhɛrtpr/ "having sung and stopped singing thou kept silent" [m- 2nd pers.,hɛrt "to sing",-pperfective,-r continuous].

LikeTolomako, Sakao distinguishes four numbers for its personal pronouns. However, they are not singular, dual, trial, plural, but singular, dual, paucal, plural. The Sakao paucal derives from the Tolomako trial, thus Tolomakoi ɣire-tolu "they three", Sakaojørðœl "they, from three to ten" (jør andðœl are regularly derivable fromi ɣire <*i ɣira and*tolu). One says in Sakaojørðœl løn <*i ɣira-tolu lima "the five of them" which is, etymologically, "they three, five."

Substantives are not inflected for number, except kinship terms which distinguish singular and plural:ðjœɣ "my mother/aunt,"rðjœɣ "my aunts;"walðyɣ "my child,"raalðyɣ "my children." Likewise all demonstratives (pronouns, adjectives, even locatives):wa "this one,"warɨr "these ones;"aðœŋœn mam "this person,"aðœŋœn mamɨr "these persons;"ðað "here,"ðaðɨr "in several places around here."

Sakao has seven degrees ofdeixis.

Sakao hasinalienably possessed nouns, many of which are irregularly inflected:

Here "mouth" is variablyœsɨŋœ-, ɔsɨŋɔ-, œsœŋ- and "hair" variablyuly-, ulœ-, nøl-.

Sakao has a suffix-ɨn that increases thevalence of a verb (corresponding toapplicative suffixes in other languages): it makesintransitive verbs transitive, andtransitive verbs ditransitive. It the latter case, one argument may be thedirect object and the other an instrument; the word order of the arguments is free, leaving context to disambiguate which is which:

This could also bemɨjilɨn amas ara.

The Sakao strategy involvespolysynthetic syntax, as opposed to the isolating syntax of its neighborTolomako. For instance, the word 'pig' above could beincorporated into the verb, leaving a single external argument:

Sakao polysynthesis can also involve compound verbs, each with its own instrument or object:

Hereaða "the bow" is the instrumental argument ofsɔn "to shoot", andɛðɛ "the sea" is the direct object ofhoβ "to follow", which since they are combined into a single verb, are marked asditransitive with the suffix-ɨn. Becausesɔn "to shoot" has theincorporated objectnɛs "fish", the first consonantgeminates forssɔn;ssɔn-nɛs, being part of one word, then reduces tossɔnɛs.

• Tolomako language, for parallels to the above in a closely related but grammatically simpler language

• Guy, Jacques Bernard Michel (1972).A grammar of the northern dialect of Sakao, a Melanesian language of Espiritu Santo (New Hebrides) (PhD thesis). Australian National University.doi:10.25911/5D73902D1FAAD.hdl:1885/130469.
• Guy, Jacques Bernard Michel (1977). "On the origins of the Sakao vowel system (New Hebrides)".The Journal of the Polynesian Society.86 (1):97–103.JSTOR 20705229.

• ELAR archive ofN'kep dialect of Sakao (north Vanuatu): Structure and variation
• Paradisec has two collections ofArthur Cappell's (AC1,AC2) that include Sakao language materials

• Languages of Vanuatu
• Espiritu Santo languages

• Pages containing links to subscription-only content
• Language articles citing Ethnologue 18
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Pages with plain IPA
• Articles containing Sakao-language text
• Articles containing uncoded-language text
• Articles with ambiguous glossing abbreviations