It distinguishes four numbers for its personal pronouns: singular, dual, trial, plural. Its verbs have no tense or aspect marking, but two moods, realis and irrealis. Substantives and numerals also have the same two moods. E.g. Someone is missing There is nobody. Tolomako proper is characterized by having dentals where the mother language had labials before front vowels. It shares this feature with Sakao, but not with its dialect Tsureviu, which is otherwise very close. Thus:
Tolomako
Tsureviu
tei
pei
"water"
nata
mata
"eye"
When labials do occur preceding front vowels they seem to be reflexes of older labiovelars:
Tolomako
Tsureviu
pei
pei
"good"
mata
mata
"snake"
Compare with Fijian ŋata "snake". It is possible that Tolomako is a very simplified daughter-language or pidgin of the neighboring language Sakao. However, Tolomako is more likely a sister language of Sakao, not a pidgin. It cannot be phonologically derived from Sakao, whereas Sakao can be from Tolomako to some extent. Comparing Tolomako with its close dialect of Tsureviu allows researchers to reconstruct an earlier state, from which most of Sakao can be regularly derived. This earlier state is very close to what can be reconstructed of Proto-Vanuatu. Thus Tolomako is a very conservative language, whereas Sakao has undergone drastic innovations in its phonology and grammar, both in the direction of increased complexity.
Phonology
labial
alveolar
velar
nasal
m
n
plosive
p
t
k
affricate
ts
fricative
β
ɣ
trill
r
approximant
l
Tolomako has a simple syllable structure, maximally consonant-vowel-vowel: V, CV, VV, CVV.
Deixis
There are three degrees of deixis, here/this, there/that, yonder/yon.
Tolomako was unwritten until the arrival of missionaries from the New Hebrides Mission. James Sandilands translated Matthew, Jonah and Malachi from the Bible into Tolomako and these were published as "Na taveti tahonae hi Iesu Kristo, Matiu moulia..." by the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1904. An missionary with the New Hebrides Mission, Charles E. Yates translated the book of Acts into Tolomaku and this was published by the Melbourne Auxiliary of the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1906. Charles E. Yates then worked on the Gospel of John, the Letter to the Philippians and the 1st and 2nd Letters to Timothy. With the help of fifteen of his teaching staff they translated "Na Taveti Tahonai hi Jon na Varisula" and 750 copies were published by the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1909.
