Template:Short description Template:DistinguishTemplate:Infobox language family The Andamanese languages are the various languages spoken by the indigenous peoples of the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean. There are two known Andamanese language families, Great Andamanese and Ongan, as well as two presumed but unattested languages, Sentinelese and Jangil.
Although the languages in the Andaman Islands were once assumed to be in the same language family, it is now widely accepted that Great Andamanese and Ongan have no genealogical relationship. Thus, the term "Andamanese languages" is now a geographic label.
ClassificationEdit
The attested Andamanese languages fall into two genetically unrelated families:<ref name="Manoh1">Manoharan, S. (1983). "Subgrouping Andamanese group of languages." International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics XII(1): 82–95.</ref><ref name="Abbi" />
- Great Andamanese: A moribund language family once spoken by Great Andamanese people. Today, the first language of most Great Andamanese people is Hindi.<ref name=":1" />
- Ongan: Two languages, Jarawa and Onge, spoken by roughly 670 people in 2020.<ref name=":2">Template:Cite news</ref>
In addition, there are two unattested languages:
- Sentinelese: Because the Sentinelese people refuse contact with outsiders, their language and exact population are unknown. There are likely at least 50 speakers, and perhaps upwards of 250. Anvita Abbi (2020) believes that Sentinelese is most likely Ongan.<ref name=":2" />
- Jangil: Extinct by 1920s. No ethnically Jangil people survive today. Maurice Vidal Portman observed that Jangil shared similarities with Jarawa, and believed that they were at one point the same language.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation
|CitationClass=web }}</ref>
The languages of the Andaman Islands have frequently been assumed to be from the same single Andamanese language family. However, the similarities between Great Andamanese and Ongan are so far mainly of a typological morphological nature, with little common vocabulary. Abbi (2009) demonstrated that the Andaman Islands have two unrelated language families: Great Andamanese and Ongan.<ref name="Abbi" />
Blevins (2007) summarizes,
Controversial classificationsEdit
Joseph Greenberg proposed that the Great Andamanese languages are related to western Papuan languages as members of a phylum he called Indo-Pacific,<ref name="Greenb">Greenberg, Joseph (1971). "The Indo-Pacific hypothesis." Current trends in linguistics vol. 8, ed. by Thomas A. Sebeok, 807.71. The Hague: Mouton.</ref> but this is not generally accepted by other linguists. Stephen Wurm states that the lexical similarities between Great Andamanese and the West Papuan and certain languages of Timor "are quite striking and amount to virtual formal identity […] in a number of instances", but considers this to be due to a linguistic substratum rather than a direct relationship.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Blevins (2007) proposes that the Ongan languages are related to Austronesian in an Austronesian–Ongan family, for which she has attempted to establish regular sound correspondences.<ref name=":0">Template:Citation</ref> The proposed connection between Austronesian and Ongan has not been supported by Austronesianists, and Robert Blust (2014) finds that Blevins' conclusions are not supported by her data: Of her first 25 reconstructions, none are reproducible using the comparative method, and Blust concludes that the grammatical comparison does not hold up. Blust, in addition, cites non-linguistic (such as cultural, archaeological, and biological) evidence against Blevins' hypothesis.<ref>Robert Blust (2014) "Some Recent Proposals Concerning the Classification of the Austronesian Languages", Oceanic Linguistics 53:2:300-391.</ref>
HistoryEdit
{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} The indigenous peoples of the Andaman Islands have lived there for thousands of years. Although the existence of the islands and their inhabitants was long known to maritime powers and traders of the South– and Southeast–Asia region, contact with these peoples was highly sporadic and very often hostile. As a result, almost nothing is recorded of them or their languages until the mid-18th century.
By the late 18th century, when the British first established a colonial presence on the Andaman Islands, there were an estimated 5,000 Great Andamanese living on Great Andaman and surrounding islands, comprising 10 distinct tribes with distinct but closely related languages.
From the 1860s onwards, the British established a penal colony on the islands, which led to the subsequent arrival of mainland settlers and indentured labourers, mainly from the Indian subcontinent. This coincided with the massive population reduction of the Andamanese due to outside diseases.
One of the first accounts in English of the languages was by the early phonetician Alexander John Ellis, who presented to the Philological Society on the South Andamanese languages on his retirement. This presentation was later adapted into a Report of Researches into the Language of the South Andaman Island.<ref>Appendix in Template:Cite book</ref>
By the beginning of the 20th century most of these populations were greatly reduced in numbers, and the various linguistic and tribal divisions among the Great Andamanese effectively ceased to exist, despite a census of the time still classifying the groups as separate.<ref>Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. (1922). The Andaman Islanders: A study in social anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.</ref> Their linguistic diversity also suffered as the surviving populations intermingled with one another, and some also intermarried with Karen (Burmese) and Indian settlers.
By the latter part of the 20th century, the majority of Great Andamanese languages had become extinct.
At the start of the 21st century only about 50 or so individuals of Great Andamanese descent remained, resettled to a single small island (Strait I.). About half of these individuals speak what may be considered a modified version (or creole) of Great Andamanese, based mainly on Aka-Jeru.<ref name="Abbi">Abbi, Anvita (2008). "Is Great Andamanese genealogically and typologically distinct from Onge and Jarawa?" Language Sciences, {{#invoke:doi|main}}</ref> This modified version has been called "Present Great Andamanese" by some scholars,<ref name=Abbi06>Abbi, Anvita (2006). Endangered Languages of the Andaman Islands. Germany: Lincom GmbH.</ref><ref name=Burenh>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> but also may be referred to simply as "Jero" or "Great Andamanese". Hindi increasingly serves as their primary language, and is the only language for around half of them.<ref name=":1">Abbi, Anvita, Bidisha Som, and Alok Das (2007). "Where Have All The Speakers Gone? A Sociolinguistic Study of The Great Andamanese", Indian Linguistics 68.3–4:325–343. Archived 2021-07-19 at the Wayback Machine.</ref>
The Ongan languages survive mainly because of the greater isolation of the peoples who speak them. This isolation has been reinforced by an outright hostility towards outsiders and extreme reluctance to engage in contact with them by South Andamanese tribes, particularly the Sentinelese and Jarawa. The Sentinelese have been so resistant that their language remains entirely unknown to outsiders.
LexiconEdit
Abbi (2009)<ref name="Abbi" /> lists the following lexical items for Onge, Jarawa, and Great Andamanese, showing that Ongan and Great Andamanese are distinct language families sharing few lexical similarities.
English Onge Jarawa Great Andamanese boat ɖaŋɛ cɨ (cagiya paɖa)-taŋ/daŋ rowa bow ɪja aːw ko child ɨcɨʐɨ ɨcɨʐə ʈʰire crocodile ʈɔjəgɨ torogijəi sare-ka-teo crows wawa-le waːraw pʰaʈka dog wəːme, uame wɔm caːw goat ʈikʷabuli tʰikʰwa-gopejajo – laugh ɨɲja əniaː kʰole water ɨɲe iːɲ ino Template:Gcl (I) mi mi ʈʰu Template:Gcl (you) ɲi ɲi ɲ forehead -ejale -ejea -beŋ eye -ejebo -ejebo -ulu ear -ekʷagɨ -ikʰəwə -boa elbow -ito-ge -itʰo-ha -bala-tara ɖole wrist -moɲa-ge -eɲia -ʈʰo palm -obanaŋ-ge -obaŋna -koro thumb -oboʈa-ge -obotʰa -kənap thigh -ibo -ibə -buco knee -ola-ge -olak ~ -ola -curok sole -ubtəga-me -ugɖaga -moʈora-ɖole neck -aŋgiʈo -agiʈʰo -loŋɔ
See alsoEdit
ReferencesEdit
BibliographyEdit
- Abbi, Anvita. 2006. Endangered Languages of the Andaman Islands. LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics, 64. München: Lincom Europa. Template:ISBN
- Burenhult, Niclas. 1996. Deep linguistic prehistory with particular reference to Andamanese. Working Papers 45, 5–24. Lund University: Department of Linguistics.
- Man, E.H.
- Dictionary of the South Andaman Language, British India Press: Bombay 1923.
- On the Aboriginal Inhabitants of the Andaman Islands. The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 12, 1883.
- Manoharan, S. 1997. "Pronominal Prefixes and Formative Affixes in Andamanese Language." Anvita Abbi (ed.). The Languages of Tribal and Indigenous Peoples of India. The Ethnic Space. Delhi: Motilal Benarsidass.
- Portman, M.V. 1887. A Manual of the Andamanese Languages. London: W.H. Allen & Co.
- Temple, Richard C. A Grammar of the Andamanese Languages, being Chapter IV of Part I of the Census Report on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Superintendent's Printing Press: Port Blair 1902.
- Zide, Norman Herbert & V. Pandya. 1989. "A Bibliographical Introduction to Andamanese Linguistics." Journal of the American Oriental Society 109: 639–51.
External linksEdit
- South Asia Bibliography – Andamanese
- Andaman Association
- Template:Usurped Anvita Abbi, Jawaharlal Nehru University
- The Andamanese Language Family (I) & (II)
- Burenhult's Paper on Andamanese
- Another link to Burenhult on Andamanese