Touo language

The Touo language, also known as Baniata (Mbaniata) or Lokuru, is spoken over the southern part of Rendova Island, located in the Western Province of the Solomon Islands.

Classification Touo is generally seen to be a member of the tentative Central Solomons family, although Glottolog considers it an isolate. Pedrós (2015) cautiously suggests Lavukaleve as the closest relative to Touo. Most of the surrounding languages to Touo belong to the Oceanic subgroup of the Austronesian language family.

Names The Touo language is sometimes called the Baniata (Mbaniata) or Lokuru language, after the largest two villages where the language is spoken. The word Touo comes from the ethnonym that Touo speakers use to refer to themselves.

Phonology Consonants Touo consonants are:

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;" |- ! colspan="2" | ! Labial ! Alveolar ! Velar ! Glottal |- ! colspan="2" | Nasal

! rowspan="2" | Stop ! | () | | ()

! rowspan="2" | Fricative !

! colspan="2" | Approximant

Vowels Touo has six lax and five tense vowels.

+Vowels Front Back Tense Lax Tense Lax High Mid Low

Some minimal pairs showing the tense/lax vowel phonemic distinction in Touo:

+Lax vs. Tense VowelsLax TenseOrthography Gloss Orthography Gloss road oven garden four who? eat small sleep

Grammar Word order in Touo is SOV.

Touo has four genders. masculine feminine neuter I (generic) neuter II (certain trees)

Only in certain paradigms of the singular number can neuter I and II be distinguished.

Touo distinguishes four numbers. singular dual enumerated (i.e., numerically specified; can be used for both few or many numbers) non-enumerated (i.e., not numerically specified; used for numbers greater than three)

Touo language

Bron en licentie