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Ske language

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Ske
Seke
Native toVanuatu
RegionPentecost Island
Native speakers
300 (2011)[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3ske
Glottologseke1241
ELPSeke (Vanuatu)
Ske is classified as Severely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Ske (or Seke) is an endangered language of south-western Pentecost island in Vanuatu. Ske is an Oceanic language (a branch of the Austronesian language family).

The Ske area comprises fourteen small villages centred on Baravet in south-central Pentecost, from Liavzendam (Levizendam) in the north to Hotwata in the south and extending inland to Vanliamit. Historically the language's area extended to parallel areas of the east coast, but this part of the island is now depopulated.

Due to intermarriage between language areas, an increasing number of people in Ske-speaking villages now speak Bislama as a first language, and Ske is no longer being actively transmitted to children. A closely related neighbouring language, Sowa, has already been totally displaced by Apma.

The number of Ske speakers is estimated at 300. The widely reported figure of 600 is probably an overestimate, since not everybody in the Ske area is fluent in the language.

There is no significant dialectal variation within modern Ske, although there are noticeable differences between the Ske of older and younger speakers. Doltes, the extinct dialect of Hotwata village, is sometimes regarded as a Ske dialect, but appears to have been closer to Sa.

There is no local tradition of writing in Ske, and until recently the language was virtually undocumented. However, linguist Kay Johnson has written a PhD thesis on the language, including a sketch grammar. Prior to her arrival, the only records of Ske were short vocabulary lists collected by David Walsh in the 1960s, Catriona Hyslop in 2001 and Andrew Gray in 2007.

Phonology

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Ske notably drops unstressed vowels. This has resulted in a language rich in consonants, in contrast to related languages such as Raga. Due to the presence of consonant clusters within syllables and other phonological features not typical of the area's languages, speakers of neighbouring languages consider Ske difficult to speak and learn.[citation needed]

Geminate consonants occur where two identical consonants have been brought together by the historical loss of an intervening vowel, for example in -kkas 'to be sweet' (compare Sowa kakas). Geminates contrast with single consonants word initially, e.g., sser 'red mat' and ser 'lantern'.[2]

Unlike neighbouring languages such as Apma, Ske permits a variety of voiced consonants to occur at the end of syllables, although when they occur at the end of an utterance they are often followed by an 'echo' of the previous vowel. For example, skor /skɔr/ 'sago palm thatch' is often pronounced [skɔrɔ].[3]

Stress typically occurs on the final syllable of a word.[4]

Consonants

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Ske consonants[5]
Bilabial Alveolar Velar Glottal
Plain Labio-velarized
Nasal m n ŋ
Plosive Voiceless p t k
Voiced b d g
Fricative Voiceless (f) s h
Voiced β βʷ z ɣ
Approximant w l
Trill r
  • Voiced plosives are prenasalized, contrasting with voiceless plosives. For example, /ti/ [ti] '2SG.FUT' contrasts with /di/ [ndi] 'grow.shoot'. Prenasalization also occurs across word boundaries (sandhi) when the previous word ends in a vowel. For example, 'I'm going to Bwaravet' /mʷa ba bʷaravɛt/ becomes [mwa mba mbwaravɛt].[6]
  • Verb-initial /β, z/ become [b, d].[6]
  • As of 2014, younger speakers are re-analyzing /pʷ, bʷ, βʷ/ as /pi, bi, βi/. For example, older speakers say /bʷoŋ/ for 'night', while younger speakers say /bioŋ/.[7]
  • Bilabial consonants lose their velarization before a consonant or at the end of a word.[7]
  • /m/ becomes [mʷ] before back vowels.[8]
  • /f/ only occurs in loanwords.[8]
  • Some speakers pronounce /z/ as an affricate.[8]
  • /ɣ/ is pronounced [g] before voiced phonemes.[9]

Vowels

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Ske monophthongs[9]
Front Central Back
Close i u
Close-mid e o
Open-mid ɛ ɔ
Open ä
  • /e/ is phonetically [ʲe] after most consonants (generally not after /r, t, p, b/) in a stressed syllable.[9]
Ske diphthongs[9]
Falling Rising
io ao
ia

Orthography

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Kay Johnson worked with the Ske community to develop the following orthography:

Ske orthography[10]
Phoneme Grapheme
ä a
b b
bw
d d
e é; ie[a]
ɛ e
g q
ɣ g
h h
i i
k k
l l
m m
mw
n n
ŋ ng
o ó
ɔ o
p p
pw
r r
s s
t t
u u
β v
βʷ vw
w w
z z
  1. ^ "when realized as a glide" per Johnson (2014)

Some older sources write /ᵑg/ as ⟨ngg⟩ or ⟨ḡ⟩.

Grammar

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Basic word order in Ske is subject–verb–object.

Pronouns

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Personal pronouns are distinguished by person and number. They are not distinguished by gender. The basic pronouns are:

singular plural
1st person exclusive nou qmwam
inclusive id
2nd person iq qmi
3rd person ni nier

Nouns

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Nouns in Ske are generally not preceded by articles. Plurality is indicated by placing the pronoun nier 'them' or a number after the noun.

Nouns may be either free, or directly possessed. Directly possessed nouns are suffixed to indicate whom an item belongs to. For example:

dloq 'my voice'
dlom 'your voice'
dlon 'his/her voice'
dlon subu 'the chief's voice'

Possession may also be indicated by the use of possessive classifiers, separate words that occur before or after the noun and take possessive suffixes. These classifiers are:

  • no- for general possessions (noq tobang 'my basket')
  • blie- for things that are cared for, such as crops and livestock (blied bó 'our pig')
  • a- for things to be eaten (am bwet 'your taro')
  • mwa- for things to be drunk (mwar ri 'their water') and for buildings (mwan im 'his house')
  • bie- for fire (biem ab 'your fire')
  • die- for fruits that are cut open (dien valnga 'his bush nut')
  • na- for associations, over which the possessor has no control (vnó naq 'my home island')

The possessive suffixes are as follows:

singular plural
1st person exclusive

-q

-q

"of mine"

-mwam

-mwam

"of ours" (mine and others')

inclusive

-d

-d

"of ours" (yours and mine)

2nd person

-m

-m

"of yours" (singular)

-mi

-mi

"of yours" (plural)

3rd person

-n

-n

"of his/hers/its"

-r

-r

"of theirs"

Generic -qze

A verb may be transformed into a noun by the addition of a nominalising suffix -an:

vwel 'to dance' (verb)
vwelan 'a dance' (noun)

Modifiers generally come after a noun:

vet 'stone'
vet alok 'big stone'
vet aviet 'four stones'

Verbs

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Verbs are preceded by markers providing information on the subject and the tense, aspect and mood of an action. These markers differ substantially between older and younger speakers; the newer forms are in brackets below.

Person Subject marker -
imperfective (present tense)
Subject marker -
perfective (past tense)
Subject marker -
irrealis (future tense)
English
1st person singular mwa ni mwade or mwan "I"
2nd person singular kmwe (mwi) ki (ti) ti (de ti) "you" (singular)
3rd person singular m[w] or mwe a de "he" / "she" / "it"
1st person dual (inclusive) ta kra (tra) tra (de tra) "we" (you and I, two of us)
1st person dual (exclusive) mwamra mwara (mwamra) mwadra "we" (another and I)
2nd person dual mwira or mwria kria (dria) dria (de dria) "you" (two)
3rd person dual mra ara dra "they" (two)
1st person plural (inclusive) pe kve (tve) tve (de tve) "we" (you and I)
1st person plural (exclusive) mwabe mwave (mwabe) mwadve "we" (others and I)
2nd person plural bi kvie (dvie) dvie (de dvie) "you" (plural)
3rd person plural be ave dve "they"

There is a pattern of verb-consonant mutation whereby v at the start of a verb changes to b, and vw to bw. This mutation occurs in imperfective aspect (present tense), and in irrealis mood (future tense):

ni va = I went
mwa ba = I am going
mwade ba = I will go

(Among a few older speakers there is also mutation of z to d, but most Ske speakers today use only the d forms.)

Hypothetical phrases are marked with :

ni umné = I should do it

Negative phrases are preceded by kare ("not") or a variant:

kare ni umné = I didn't do it

Transitive and intransitive verb forms are distinguished. Transitive verbs are commonly followed or suffixed with -né:

mwa róh = I move
mwa róh vet = I move the stone

Ske makes extensive use of stative verbs for descriptive purposes.

Ske has a copular verb, or .

Verbs in Ske can be linked together in serial verb constructions.

Sample phrases

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English Ske (traditional) Ske (younger speakers)
Good morning Vangren ambis Vangren ambis
Good day Ren ambis Ren ambis
Good evening / Good night Buong ambis Biong ambis
Where are you going? Kmwe mba embéh? Mwi mba embéh?
I'm going to... Mwa mba... Mwa mba...
Where have you come from? Ki me embéh? Ti me embéh?
I've come from... Ni me... Ni me...
Where is it? Mdu embéh? Mdu embéh?
It's here Mdu ene Mdu ene
Come here! Ti me ene! Ti me ene!
Go away! Ti suk! Ti suk!
What's your name? Siam ne sien? Siam ne sien?
My name is... Siaq ne... Siaq ne...
Where are you from? Iq azó ze embéh? Iq azó ze embéh?
I am from... Nou azó ze... Nou azó ze...
How much? / How many? Avih? Avih?
one alvwal alvial
two aru aru
three aziol aziol
four aviet aviet
five alim alim
Thank you Kmwe mbariev Mwi mbariev
It's just fine Bis knge Bis knge

Notes

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  1. ^ Ske at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ Johnson 2014, p. 60.
  3. ^ Johnson 2014, p. 66.
  4. ^ Johnson 2014, pp. 62–64.
  5. ^ Johnson 2014, p. 51.
  6. ^ a b Johnson 2014, p. 52.
  7. ^ a b Johnson 2014, p. 53.
  8. ^ a b c Johnson 2014, p. 54.
  9. ^ a b c d Johnson 2014, p. 56.
  10. ^ Johnson 2014, pp. 67–68.

References

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  • Gray, Andrew (2012). The Languages of Pentecost Island. Manples (BFOV). ISBN 978-0-9560985-4-2.
  • Johnson, Kay (2014). Static spatial expression in Ske: an Oceanic language of Vanuatu (PhD thesis). SOAS, University of London. doi:10.25501/SOAS.00018443.
  • Lynch, John; Crowley, Terry (2001). Languages of Vanuatu: A New Survey and Bibliography. Pacific Linguistics. doi:10.15144/PL-517.
  • Tryon, Darrell (1976). New Hebrides Languages: An Internal Classification. Pacific Linguistics. doi:10.15144/PL-C50.
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