| Tolomako | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Vanuatu | |
| Region: | Big Bay, Espiritu Santo Island | |
| Total speakers: | less than 500 | |
| Language family: | Austronesian Malayo-Polynesian Central Eastern Eastern Oceanic Central-Eastern Remote Oceanic North and Central Northeast West Santo Tolomako |
|
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | none | |
| ISO 639-2: | map | |
| ISO 639-3: | tlm | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Vanuatu, officially the Republic of Vanuatu ( French: République de Vanuatu, Bislama: Ripablik blong Vanuatu) is an Island For the island in the Gulf of California see Isla Espíritu Santo. List of language familiesA language family is a group of Languages related by descent from a common ancestor called the Proto-language of that family The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, with approximately 351 million speakers The family of Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages is a branch of the Nuclear Malayo-Polynesian languages. The family of Eastern Malayo-Polynesian (EMP languages is a subgroup of the Central Eastern Malayo-Polynesian languages. The Oceanic languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, containing approximately 450 languages The over 200 Central-Eastern Oceanic languages form a branch of the Oceanic Language family within the Austronesian languages. The family of Remote Oceanic languages is a subgroup of the Central-Eastern Oceanic languages. Components East Santo languages North East Santo languages South East Santo languages Components Central Vanuatu languages Eton Lelepa Namakura North Components Akei Araki Amblong Aore Fortsenal ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages ISO 639 -3 (ISO 639-32007 is an international standard for Language codes The standard describes three‐letter codes for identifying languages In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's | ||
Tolomako is a language of the Oceanic subgroup of Austronesian languages. The Oceanic languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, containing approximately 450 languages It is spoken on Santo island in Vanuatu. Vanuatu, officially the Republic of Vanuatu ( French: République de Vanuatu, Bislama: Ripablik blong Vanuatu) is an Island It distinguishes four numbers for its personal pronouns: singular, dual, trial, plural. Its verbs have no tense or aspect marking, but two moods, realis and irrealis. Realis moods are a category of Grammatical moods which indicate that something is actually the case (or actually not the case in other words the state of which is known Irrealis moods are the main set of Grammatical moods that indicate that a certain situation or action is not known to have happened as the speaker is talking Substantives and numerals also have the same two moods. E. g.
| na | tatsua | mo | tea | mo | tsoa |
| realis | person | realis | one | realis | not to be |
Someone is missing
| te | tatsua | i | tea | mo | tsoa |
| irrealis | person | irrealis | one | realis | not to be |
There is nobody.
Tolomako is characterized by having dentals where the mother language had labials before front vowels. It shares this feature with Sakao, but not with its very close dialect Tsureviu. Sakao is a language of the Oceanic subgroup of Austronesian languages. Thus:
| Tolomako | Tsureviu | ||
| tei | pei | "water" | |
| nata | mata | "eye" |
When labials do occur preceding front vowels they seem to be reflexes of older labiovelars:
| Tolomako | Tsureviu | ||
| pei | pei | "good" | |
| mata | mata | "snake" |
Compare with Fijian ŋata "snake" (spelt gata).
It has been speculated that Tolomako is a very simplified daughter-language or pidgin of the neighboring language Sakao. Sakao is a language of the Oceanic subgroup of Austronesian languages. However, Tolomako is more likely a sister language of Sakao, not a pidgin. It cannot be phonologically derived from Sakao, whereas Sakao can be from Tolomako to some extent. Comparing Tolomako with its close dialect of Tsureviu allows to reconstruct an earlier state, from which most of Sakao can be regularly derived. This earlier state is very close to what can be reconstructed of Proto-Vanuatu. Thus Tolomako is a very conservative language, whereas Sakao has undergone drastic innovations in its phonology and grammar, both in the direction of increased complexity.
External links
- Ethnologue report
- A 1992 mailing list message from Jacques Guy, describing some of his fieldwork on the language
- A 1994 message from Jacques Guy, citing Tolomako as a counterexample to the thesis that all languages are equally complex
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