The Ske area comprises fourteen small villages centred on Baravet in south-central Pentecost, from Liavzendam (Levizendam) in the north to Hotwata in the south and extending inland to Vanliamit. Historically the language's area extended to parallel areas of the east coast, but this part of the island is now depopulated.
Due to intermarriage between language areas, an increasing number of people in Ske-speaking villages now speak Bislama as a first language, and Ske is no longer being actively transmitted to children. A closely related neighbouring language, Sowa, has already been totally displaced by Apma.
The number of Ske speakers is estimated at 300. The widely reported figure of 600 is probably an overestimate, since not everybody in the Ske area is fluent in the language.
There is no significant dialectal variation within modern Ske, although there are noticeable differences between the Ske of older and younger speakers. Doltes, the extinct dialect of Hotwata village, is sometimes regarded as a Ske dialect, but appears to have been closer to Sa.
There is no local tradition of writing in Ske, and until recently the language was virtually undocumented. However, linguist Kay Johnson has written a PhD thesis on the language, including a sketch grammar. Prior to her arrival, the only records of Ske were short vocabulary lists collected by David Walsh in the 1960s, Catriona Hyslop in 2001 and Andrew Gray in 2007.
Ske notably drops unstressed vowels. This has resulted in a language rich in consonants, in contrast to related languages such as Raga. Due to the presence of consonant clusters within syllables and other phonological features not typical of the area's languages, speakers of neighbouring languages consider Ske difficult to speak and learn.[citation needed]
Geminate consonants occur where two identical consonants have been brought together by the historical loss of an intervening vowel, for example in -kkas'to be sweet' (compare Sowakakas). Geminates contrast with single consonants word initially, e.g., sser'red mat' and ser'lantern'.[2]
Unlike neighbouring languages such as Apma, Ske permits a variety of voiced consonants to occur at the end of syllables, although when they occur at the end of an utterance they are often followed by an 'echo' of the previous vowel. For example, skor/skɔr/'sago palm thatch' is often pronounced [skɔrɔ].[3]
Stress typically occurs on the final syllable of a word.[4]
Voiced plosives are prenasalized, contrasting with voiceless plosives. For example, /ti/[ti]'2SG.FUT' contrasts with /di/[ndi]'grow.shoot'. Prenasalization also occurs across word boundaries (sandhi) when the previous word ends in a vowel. For example, 'I'm going to Bwaravet'/mʷababʷaravɛt/ becomes [mwambambwaravɛt].[6]
As of 2014[update], younger speakers are re-analyzing /pʷ,bʷ,βʷ/as/pi,bi,βi/. For example, older speakers say /bʷoŋ/ for 'night', while younger speakers say /bioŋ/.[7]
Nouns in Ske are generally not preceded by articles. Plurality is indicated by placing the pronoun nier'them' or a number after the noun.
Nouns may be either free, or directly possessed. Directly possessed nouns are suffixed to indicate whom an item belongs to. For example:
dloq'my voice'
dlom'your voice'
dlon'his/her voice'
dlon subu'the chief's voice'
Possession may also be indicated by the use of possessive classifiers, separate words that occur before or after the noun and take possessive suffixes. These classifiers are:
no- for general possessions (noq tobang'my basket')
blie- for things that are cared for, such as crops and livestock (blied bó'our pig')
a- for things to be eaten (am bwet'your taro')
mwa- for things to be drunk (mwar ri'their water') and for buildings (mwan im'his house')
bie- for fire (biem ab'your fire')
die- for fruits that are cut open (dien valnga'his bush nut')
na- for associations, over which the possessor has no control (vnó naq'my home island')
The possessive suffixes are as follows:
singular
plural
1st person
exclusive
-q
-q
"of mine"
-mwam
-mwam
"of ours" (mine and others')
inclusive
-d
-d
"of ours" (yours and mine)
2nd person
-m
-m
"of yours" (singular)
-mi
-mi
"of yours" (plural)
3rd person
-n
-n
"of his/hers/its"
-r
-r
"of theirs"
Generic
-qze
A verb may be transformed into a noun by the addition of a nominalising suffix-an:
Verbs are preceded by markers providing information on the subject and the tense, aspect and mood of an action. These markers differ substantially between older and younger speakers; the newer forms are in brackets below.
Person
Subject marker - imperfective (present tense)
Subject marker - perfective (past tense)
Subject marker - irrealis (future tense)
English
1st person singular
mwa
ni
mwadeormwan
"I"
2nd person singular
kmwe (mwi)
ki (ti)
ti (de ti)
"you" (singular)
3rd person singular
m[w]ormwe
a
de
"he" / "she" / "it"
1st person dual (inclusive)
ta
kra (tra)
tra (de tra)
"we" (you and I, two of us)
1st person dual (exclusive)
mwamra
mwara (mwamra)
mwadra
"we" (another and I)
2nd person dual
mwiraormwria
kria (dria)
dria (de dria)
"you" (two)
3rd person dual
mra
ara
dra
"they" (two)
1st person plural (inclusive)
pe
kve (tve)
tve (de tve)
"we" (you and I)
1st person plural (exclusive)
mwabe
mwave (mwabe)
mwadve
"we" (others and I)
2nd person plural
bi
kvie (dvie)
dvie (de dvie)
"you" (plural)
3rd person plural
be
ave
dve
"they"
There is a pattern of verb-consonant mutation whereby v at the start of a verb changes to b, and vwtobw. This mutation occurs in imperfective aspect (present tense), and in irrealis mood (future tense):
niva = I went
mwa ba = I am going
mwade ba = I will go
(Among a few older speakers there is also mutation of ztod, but most Ske speakers today use only the d forms.)
Hypothetical phrases are marked with mó:
nimó umné = I should do it
Negative phrases are preceded by kare ("not") or a variant:
kare ni umné = I didn't do it
Transitive and intransitive verb forms are distinguished. Transitive verbs are commonly followed or suffixed with -né:
mwa róh = I move
mwa róh né vet = I move the stone
Ske makes extensive use of stative verbs for descriptive purposes.
