Dhao language

The Dhao language, better known to outsiders by its Rotinese name Ndao, is the language of Ndao Island in Indonesia. Traditionally classified as a Sumba language in the Austronesian family, it may actually be a non-Austronesian language. It was once considered a dialect of Hawu, but is not mutually intelligible.

Phonology

Dhao phonology is similar to that of Hawu, but somewhat more complex in its consonants.
Consonants of the column are apical, those of the column laminal. are found in Malay loan words. In a practical orthography developed for writing the language, implosives are written, the affricates, and the voiced glottal onset as a double vowel. The is sometimes silent, but contrasts with a glottal stop onset in vowel-initial words within a phrase. Its phonemic status is not clear. It has an "extremely limited distribution", linking noun phrases and clauses.
Vowels are, with written. Phonetic long vowels and diphthongs are vowel sequences. The penultimate syllable/vowel is stressed.
'this.[object (grammar)|]', 'this', 'thinking', 'senile', 'wind'.
A stressed schwa lengthens the following consonant: 'yesterday', 'night'.
Syllables are consonant-vowel or vowel-only.
f, q, v, w, x, y and z are only used in loanwords and foreign names.

Grammar

Dhao has a nominative–accusative subject–verb–object word order, unlike Hawu. Within noun phrases, modifiers follow the noun. There are a set of independent pronouns, and also a set of pronominal clitics.

Pronoun	Independent	Clitic
I	ja’a	ku
thou	èu	mu
s/he	nèngu	na
we	èdhi	ti
we	ji’i	nga
y'all	miu	mi
they	rèngu	ra

When the clitics are used for objects, there are proximal forms in the third person, ne 'this one' and si 'these', the latter also for collective plurals. When used for subjects and the verb begins with a vowel, they drop their vowel with a few irregularities: keʔa meʔa neʔa teʔa ŋeʔa meʔa reʔa 'to know'. Many words that translate prepositions in English are verbs in Dhao, and inflect as such. Dhao also has a single 'intradirective' verb, laʔ 'to go', in which the clitics follow: laku lamu laʔa or laʔe lati lami lasi.
Demonstratives distinguish proximal, distal, and remote.

Demonstrative	Singular	Plural
Proximal	ne'e, ne	se'e, se
Distal	èèna, na	sèra, sa
Remote	nèi, ni	sèi, si

Sample clauses.