Sawa

LANGUAGE FAMILY: ALABAG
# SPEAKERS / WORLD RANKING: 180K / #54
SPOKEN IN: Masatoyahi - 180K
PERIOD OF USE:
SCRIPT USED:
PARENT LANGUAGE:

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"...and he stood holding his hat and turned his wet face to the wind..."
Translation: gul lang mu ipip lanogi agi gul mu monun nenote boneng e tage
Pronunciation: guɭ laŋ mu iˈpip lanoˈgi aˈgi guɭ mu moˈnun neˈnote poˈneŋ e ˈtage

Sawa word order: and he his hat holding stood and his wet face the wind to turned

Spelling & Phonology

Consonant inventory: /f g k l m n p s t v ŋ ɭ/

↓Manner/Place→	Bilabial	Labiodental	Alveolar	Retroflex	Velar
Nasal	m		n		ŋ
Stop	p		t		k g
Fricative		f v	s
Lateral approximant			l	ɭ

Vowel inventory: /a aː à e i ì o u uː/

	Front	Back
High	i ì	u uː
High-mid	e	o
Low	a aː à

Syllable structure: Custom defined
Stress pattern: No fixed stress
Word initial consonants: f, g, l, m, n, p, s, t, v
Mid-word consonants: f, g, l, m, n, p, s, t, v
Word final consonants: N/A
Phonological changes (in order of application):

• [+nasal] → w / [+stop]_[+stop]
• l → h / _k
• n → ŋ / _#

Spelling rules:

Pronunciation	Spelling
p	b / #_ !_ʰ
pʰ	p
ŋ	ng
ɭ	l
ɾ	r
ʌ	eo
ɯ(ː)	eu
ɛ(ː)	ae
j	y
ː
tʰ	t
kʰ	k
ʨʰ	ch
ʨ	j

Grammar

Main word order: Subject Object (Prepositional phrase) Verb.
"Mary opened the door with a key" turns into Mary the door with a key opened.
Adjective order: Adjectives are positioned before the noun.
Adposition: postpositions

Nouns

Nouns have two cases:

• Nominative is the doer of a verb: dog bites man.
• Accusative is the done-to of a verb: man bites dog.

Nominative	No affix lami /ˈlami/ dog (doing the verb)
Accusative	Prefix ti- tilami /tiˈlami/ (verb done to) dog

	Masculine	Feminine
Singular	No affix nen /nen/ man	No affix lo /lo/ woman
Plural	If ends with vowel: Suffix -ɭ Else: Suffix -iɭ nenil /ˈneniɭ/ men	If ends with vowel: Suffix -t Else: Suffix -ut lot /lot/ women

Articles

Sawa has no definite article ‘the’, or indefinite article ‘a’.

Pronouns

	Nominative	Accusative
1st singular	tang /taŋ/ I	no /no/ me
2nd singular	li /li/ you (masc)	mong /moŋ/ you
3rd singular masc	lang /laŋ/ he, it	ong /oŋ/ him, it
3rd singular fem	u /u/ she, it	ma /ma/ her, it
1st plural	te /te/ we	map /map/ us
2nd plural	vo /vo/ you all	ge /ge/ you all
3rd plural masc	la /la/ they (masc)	al /aɭ/ them (masc)
3rd plural fem	ti /ti/ they (fem)	fan /fan/ them (fem)

Possessive determiners

1st singular	ge /ge/ my
2nd singular	lim /lim/ your
3rd singular masc	mu /mu/ his
3rd singular fem	i /i/ her
1st plural	e /e/ our
2nd plural	teng /teŋ/ your (pl)
3rd plural masc	ni /ni/ their (masc)
3rd plural fem	tu /tu/ their (fem)

Verbs

Future

If ends with vowel: Suffix -k Else: Suffix -ok favutok /faˈvutok/ will learn

Sawa uses a standalone particle word for past tense:

Past	Particle before the verb: la - la favut /la ˈfavut/ learned

Numbers

Sawa has a base-10 number system:
1 - i
2 - ne
3 - mol
4 - lum
5 - ne
6 - lap
7 - ufal
8 - ma
9 - la
10 - sogu
11 - sogui “ten-one”
100 - moti “hundred”
101 - moti gul i “hundred and one”
200 - ne moti
1000 - mam “thousand”

Derivational morphology

Adjective → adverb = Suffix -i
Adjective → noun (the quality of being [adj]) = Suffix -am
Adjective → verb (to make something [adj]) = If ends with vowel: Suffix -ŋ Else: Suffix -aŋ
Noun → adjective (having the quality of [noun]) = If starts with vowel: Prefix n- Else: Prefix nu-
Noun → adjective relating to noun (e.g. economy → economic) = Prefix a-
Noun to verb = Suffix -a
Verb → adjective (result of doing [verb]) = If ends with vowel: Suffix -p Else: Suffix -op
Tending to = If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -en
Verb → noun (the act of [verb]) = If starts with vowel: Prefix m- Else: Prefix ma-
Verb → noun that verb produces (e.g. know → knowledge) = Suffix -o
One who [verb]s (e.g. paint → painter) = Suffix -a
Place of (e.g. wine → winery) = Suffix -a
Diminutive = Prefix a-
Augmentative = If ends with vowel: Suffix -n Else: Suffix -in

Dictionary

4447 Words.