Sahu language

Not to be confused with the Saho language.

Sahu
Native to	Indonesia
Region	Halmahera
Native speakers	(7,500 cited 1987)
Language family	West Papuan? North Halmahera Sahu Sahu
Dialects	Waioli Pa'disua Gamkonora Tala'i Ibu †
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Either: saj – Sahu ibu – Ibu
Glottolog	sahu1245  Sahu ibuu1240  Ibu
ELP	Ibu

Sahu (Sa’u, Sahu’u, Sau) is a North Halmahera language. Use is vigorous; dialects are Pa’disua (Palisua), Tala’i, Waioli, and Gamkonora. A fifth dialect, Ibu, used to be spoken near the mouth of the Ibu River.

Sahu has many Ternate loanwords, a historical legacy of the dominance of the Ternate Sultanate in the Moluccas.

Phonology

Sahu, like other North Halmahera languages, is not a tonal language.

Consonants

Sahu consonant phonemes

		Labial	Alveolar	Palato- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasal		m	n		ɲ	ŋ
Plosive/ Affricate	voiceless	p	t	tʃ		k	ʔ
	voiced	b	d	dʒ		ɡ
	implosive	ɓ	ɗ	ʄ		ɠ
Fricative		f	s
Approximant	central	w			j		h
	lateral		l
Trill			r

When preceding /a/, /o/, and /u/, the consonants /d/, /ɗ/, and /l/ become retroflex (/ɖ/, /ᶑ/, and /ɭ/, respectively). The trill /r/ alternates freely with /ɾ/, but, according to Visser and Voorhoeve, /r/ is the more usual allophone. The glottal /h/ may be realized as /χ/ by educated speakers for certain words deriving from Arabic.

Vowels

Sahu vowel phonemes

		Front	Central	Back
High		i		u
Mid		e	ə	o
Low			a

The phoneme /ə/ is only found in loans (primarily from Indonesian).