Because of the apparent phonological similarities and sharing of stable basic words such as ‘louse’, Foley speculates the potential likelihood of a distant relationship shared between the Skou and Lakes Plain families, but no formal proposals linking the two families have been made due to insufficient evidence.
Lepki, Kaure, and Kembra, spoken in mountainous inland regions of the Indonesia-PNG border to the southwest of the Skou-speaking area, are also tonal.
Pronouns in individual Skou languages:[1] Sko family cognates (I'saka, Barupu, Wutung, Skou) listed by Foley (2018):[1] A cognate set for 'louse' in Sko languages (reconstructing roughly to *nipi in Proto-Sko) as compiled by Dryer (2022):[8] The following basic vocabulary words are from Voorhoeve (1971, 1975),[9][10] as cited in the Trans-New Guinea database.
[11] More recent data from Marmion (2010)[12] has been added for Wutung and from Donohue (2002)[13] (as cited in the ASJP Database) for Skou.
The words cited constitute translation equivalents, whether they are cognate (e.g. lúrtô, rəto for “eye”) or not (e.g. hlúqbùr, kəsu for “head”).