Sahu (SaâÂÂu, SahuâÂÂu, Sau) is a North Halmahera language. Use is vigorous; dialects are PaâÂÂdisua (Palisua), TalaâÂÂi, Waioli, and Gamkonora. A fifth dialect, Ibu, used to be spoken near the mouth of the Ibu River. Ethnologue considers Waioli and Gamkonora to be separate languages.
Sahu has many Ternate loanwords, a historical legacy of the dominance of the Ternate Sultanate in the Moluccas.
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Sahu, like other North Halmahera languages, is not a tonal language.
When preceding /a/, /o/, and /u/, the consonants /d/, /ÃÂ/, and /l/ become retroflex (, , and , respectively). The trill /r/ alternates freely with , but, according to Visser and Voorhoeve, is the more usual allophone. The glottal /h/ may be realized as by educated speakers for certain words deriving from Arabic.
The phoneme /ÃÂ/ is only found in loans (primarily from Indonesian).