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.

Touo
Baniata
Native to	Solomon Islands
Region	southern Rendova Island, Western Province
Native speakers	(1,900 cited 1999 census)[1]
Language family	Central Solomons Touo
Language codes
ISO 639-3	tqu
Glottolog	touo1238
ELP	Touo
Touo is not endangered according to the classification system of the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Language families 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.^[2] The word Touo comes from the ethnonym that Touo speakers use to refer to themselves.

Phonology

Consonants

Touo consonants are:^[3]: 869

		labial	alveolar	velar	glottal
nasal		m	n	ŋ
stop	voiceless	(p)	t	(k)
	voiced	b	d	ɡ ⟨q⟩
fricative	voiceless	f	s		h
	voiced	v	z
approximant				ɰ ⟨g⟩
liquid			l

Vowels

Touo has six lax and five tense vowels.^[4]

Vowels

	Front		Back
	Tense	Lax	Tense	Lax
High	ḭ ⟨ḭ⟩	i ⟨i⟩	ṵ ⟨ṵ⟩	u ⟨u⟩
Mid	ḛ ⟨ḛ⟩	e ⟨e⟩	o̰ ⟨o̰⟩	o ⟨o⟩
Low	a̰ ⟨a̰⟩	a ⟨a⟩		ɔ ⟨w⟩

Some minimal pairs showing the tense/lax vowel phonemic distinction in Touo:^[3][4]

Lax vs. Tense Vowels

Lax		Tense
Orthography	Gloss	Orthography	Gloss
e	road	ḛ	oven
avo	garden	a̰vo	four
ua	who?	ṵa	eat
isi	small	ḭsi	sleep

Grammar

Word order in Touo is SOV.^[3]

Touo has four genders.^[3]

• 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.^[3]

• 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)

See also

• Tetepare language