Hawu language
The Hawu language, also known as Havu, historically Sawu, and known to outsiders as Savu or Sabu, is the language of the Savu people of Savu Island in Indonesia and of Raijua Island off the western tip of Savu. While past studies have suggested that Hawu may be a non-Austronesian language, the more-accepted classification is that it is a Central Malayo-Polynesian language that is most closely related to Dhao and the languages of Sumba. Dhao was once considered a dialect of Hawu, but the two languages are not mutually intelligible.
The following description is based on and.
Dialects
The Seba dialect is dominant, covering most of Savu Island and the main city of Seba. Timu is spoken in the east, Mesara in the west, and Liae on the southern tip of the island. Raijua is spoken on the island of the same name, just off-shore to the west of Savu.Phonology
Hawu shares implosive consonants with the Bima–Sumba languages and languages of Flores and Sulawesi, such Wolio.Hawu *s, attested during the Portuguese colonial era, has shifted to, a change that has not happened in Dhao. The Hawu consonant inventory is smaller than that of Dhao:
| Lab. | Apic. | Lam. | Vel. | Glot. | |
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | |
| Voiceless stop | p | t | k | ʔ | |
| Voiced stop | b | d | dʒ | ɡ | |
| Implosive | ɓ | ɗ | ʄ | ɠ | |
| Fricative | v~β | h | |||
| Approximant | l, r | - |
Consonants of the column are apical, those of the column laminal. In common orthography, the implosives are written. is pronounced or. A wye sound is found at the beginning of some words in Seba dialect where Timu and Raijua dialects have.
Vowels are, with written in common orthography. Phonetic long vowels and diphthongs are vowel sequences. The penultimate syllable/vowel is stressed. A stressed schwa lengthens the following consonant:
'with', 'what?', 'eat, food', 'senile', 'wind'.
Syllables are consonant-vowel or vowel-only.
Historical vowel metathesis
The phonological history of Hawu is characterized by an unusual, but fully regular vowel metathesis, which affects the Proto-Malayo-Polynesian vowel sequences *uCa/*uCə and *iCa/*iCə. The former changes into əCu, the latter into əCi, as illustrated in the following table.| PMP | Hawu | Gloss |
| *buta | ɓədu | blind |
| *Rumaq | əmu | house |
| *um-utaq | mədu | to vomit |
| *qulun-an | nəlu | headrest |
| *ŋuda | ŋəru | young |
| *bulan | wəru | moon, month |
| *pusəj | əhu | navel |
| *kudən | əru | cooking pot |
| *lima | ləmi | five |
| *pija | əri | how many |
| *ma-qitəm | mədi | five |
Grammar
Hawu is an ergative–absolutive language with ergative preposition ri, ro, or la. Clauses are usually verb-initial. However, the presence of the ergative preposition allows for a freer word order. Among monovalent verbs, S may occur before or after the verb. According to speakers, there is no difference in meaning between the two following constructions.In the absence of the ergative preposition, bivalent constructions have strict AVO word order.
When the ergative preposition is present, word order becomes quite free. In addition, with the presence of the ergative preposition, many transitive verbs have a special form to indicate singular number of the object by replacing the final vowel of the verb with "-e" when the verb ends in /i/, /o/, or /a/ or "-o" when the verb ends in /u/. Verbs that end in /e/ have no alternation. The following examples present a few of the word order options available, and also show the alternation of the verb nga'a 'to eat' to nga'e when ri is present.
Within noun phrases, modifiers usually follow the noun, though there are some possibly lexicalized exceptions, such as ae dəu 'many people'.
Apart from this, and unlike in Dhao, all pronominal reference uses independent pronouns. These are:
| I | Seba: jaa Dimu: ʄaa Raijua: ʄaa, dʒoo | we | dii |
| I | Seba: jaa Dimu: ʄaa Raijua: ʄaa, dʒoo | we | ʄii |
| you | əu, au, ou | you | muu |
| s/he | noo | they | roo Raijua: naa |
The demonstratives are complex and poorly understood. They may be contrasted by number, but it is not confirmed by Grimes.
These can be made locative by preceding the n forms with na; the neutral form na əne optionally contracting to nəne. 'Like this/that' is marked with mi or mi na, with the n becoming h and the neutral əne form appearing irregularly as mi həre.
Sample clauses.