Dhao language


The Dhao language, better known to outsiders by its Rotinese name Ndao, is the language of Ndao Island in Indonesia. Traditionally classified as a Sumba language in the Austronesian family, it may actually be a non-Austronesian language. It was once considered a dialect of Hawu, but is not mutually intelligible.

Phonology

Dhao phonology is similar to that of Hawu, but somewhat more complex in its consonants.
Lab.Apic.Lam.Vel.Glot.
mnɲŋ
pttʃkʔ
bddʒɡ
ɓɗʄɠ
sh
bβɖʐʕ~∅
l, r-

Consonants of the column are apical, those of the column laminal. are found in Malay loan words. In the practical orthography, implosives are written, the affricates , and the voiced glottal onset as a double vowel. The is sometimes silent, but contrasts with a glottal stop onset in vowel-initial words within a phrase. Its phonemic status is not clear. It has an "extremely limited distribution", linking noun phrases and clauses.
Vowels are, with written. Phonetic long vowels and diphthongs are vowel sequences. The penultimate syllable/vowel is stressed.
'this.object |', 'this', 'thinking', 'senile', 'wind'.
A stressed schwa lengthens the following consonant: 'yesterday', 'night'.
Syllables are consonant-vowel or vowel-only.
f, q, v, w, x, y and z are only used in loanwords and foreign names.

Grammar

Dhao has a nominative–accusative SVO word order, unlike Hawu. Within noun phrases, modifiers follow the noun. There are a set of independent pronouns, and also a set of pronominal clitics.
PRONIndep.clitic
Idʒaʔaku
thouəumu
s/henəŋuna
we əɖʐiti
we dʒiʔiŋa
y'allmiumi
theyrəŋura

When the clitics are used for objects, there are proximal forms in the third person, ' 'this one' and ' 'these', the latter also for collective plurals. When used for subjects and the verb begins with a vowel, they drop their vowel with a few irregularities: ' 'to know'. Many words that translate prepositions in English are verbs in Dhao, and inflect as such. Dhao also has a single verb, ' 'to go', in which the clitics follow: ' or ' .''
Demonstratives distinguish proximal, distal, and remote.
DEMsing.plur.
Proximalneʔe, neseʔe, se
Distaləna, ʕənasəra
Remotenəisəi

Sample clauses.