====== Tangko ======

Timothy Usher, Santa Fe Institute

===== Situation =====
Tangko is spoken by approximately 100 people (2009) living in a single village, Kawe or Kawemaot, in the Merauke Regency of Indonesia's Papua province. The people call themselves the Senggaop, and their language Tangko after the term for "what?" (Hughes 2009: 4, 11-13.) Tangko is currently attested only by a single survey vocabulary.

===== Sources =====
Hughes (2009: 27-37) 238 comparative terms for Tangko of Kawemaot village

===== Phonology =====
There is no published phonology of Tangko. Based upon comparison to Nakai, Tangko likely has 11 or 12 consonants and 6 vowels as follows:

|< - 60px 60px 60px 60px >|
|  m   |   n   |     |      |
|  p   |   t   |  s  |  k   |
|  mb  |  nd   |     |  ŋg  |
|  w   |  [r]  |  j  |      |


|< - 60px 60px 60px >|
|  i  |  ɯ  |  u  |
|  ɛ  |     |  ɔ  |
|     |     |     |

Any consonant except apical non-stop /r/ may occur initially.

Bilabial voiceless stop /p/ is realized as fricative [ɸ] initially and as a stop [p p̚] finally. An alternate analysis would have final [p] synchronically reanalyzed as an allophone of /mb/, in contrast to a bilabial fricative /ɸ/ initially. Apical voiceless stop /t/ occurs only initially, as root-medial and final reflexes of Nakai-Tangko /*t/ have merged with /r/ and fricated to /s/ [s ø] respectively. Velar voiceless stop /k/ is usually realized as uvular in all positions, and is lenited to [ɢ ʁ] root-medially.

Prenasalized stops /mb nd ŋg/ have denasalized allophones [b d k] word-initially. Bilabial prenasalized stop /mb/ is realized as plain stop /b/ medially. As apical prenasalized stop /nd/ occurs only initially, /r/ may be considered its non-initial allophone, though this is historically so only in the case of medial /r/, where the reflexes of Ok /nd/ have merged with those of /r/. Prenasalized velar stop /ŋg/ may be realized as nasal [ŋ ɴ] in any position, and is always a nasal finally.

Consonant clusters no not occur except across morpheme boundaries in compounds.\\
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Only a restricted set of consonants occurs word-finally:

|< - 60px 60px 60px 60px >|
|  m  |  n  |     |          |
|  p  |     |  s  |    k     |
|     |     |     |  ŋg [ŋ]  |
|     |  r  |     |          |

===== Pronouns =====
Hughes (2009: 28-29) gives Tangko free pronouns as follows:

|< - 100px 100px >|
|     |Tangko|
|1 sg.|nɛɾ   |
|2 sg.|qɛp   |
|3 sg.|ɛɾ    |
|1 pl.|nɥɽ   |
|2 pl.|ʔip̚  |
|3 pl.|ʔiɾ   |

===== Verbal morphology =====
Nothing is known about Tangko verbal morphology, although a common desinence /-em/ is easily spotted in Hughes' vocabulary (q.v. 2009: 35-37.)\\
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