Andamanese languages

All you want to know about Andamanese languages

Andamanese
Geographic
distribution:		 South Asia
Genetic
classification:		 Andamanese
Subdivisions:
? Sentinel (unattested)

Ethnolinguistic map of the precolonial Andaman Islands

The Andamanese languages form a proposed language family spoken by the Andamanese peoples of the Andaman Islands, a union territory of India. There are two clusters of Andamanese languages, Great Andamanese and Ongan, plus Sentinelese, which is unknown and therefore unclassifiable.

Contents

History

The indigenous Andamanese peoples have lived on the islands for thousands, if not tens of thousands, of years, and for the great majority of this period their societies and languages have remained quite undisturbed by external influences. 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. From the 1860s onwards, the setting up of a permanent British penal colony and the subsequent arrival of immigrant settlers and indentured labourers mainly from the Indian subcontinent brought the first sustained impacts upon these societies, particularly among the Great Andamanese groups.

By the turn 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.[1] 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, as the multi-lingual knowledge of the older generations was not replaced in succeeding ones.

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 speak what may be considered a modified version (or creole) of Great Andamanese, based mainly on Aka-Jeru [2]. This modified version has been called "Present Great Andamanese" by some scholars[3][4], 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.[5]

The Ongan languages survive mainly because of the greater isolation of the peoples who speak them. This isolation has been reinforced by an extreme reluctance against outside contact and outright hostility towards outsiders by South Andamanese tribes, particularly the Sentinelese and Jarawa. The Sentinelese have been so resistant that their language remains entirely unknown to outsiders to this day.

Grammar

The Andamanese languages are agglutinative languages, with an extensive prefix and suffix system.[3][6] Possibly their most distinctive characteristic is a noun class system based largely on body parts, in which every noun and adjective may take a prefix according to which body part it is associated with (on the basis of shape, or functional association).[4] Thus, for instance, the "aka-" at the beginning of so many Andamanese languages' names is actually the prefix for objects related to the tongue.[6] An adjectival example can be given by the various forms of yop, "pliable, soft", in Aka-Bea:[6]

  • A cushion or sponge is ot-yop "round-soft", from the prefix attached to words relating to the head or heart.
  • A cane is ôto-yop, "pliable", from a prefix for long things.
  • A stick or pencil is aka-yop, "pointed", from the tongue prefix.
  • A fallen tree is ar-yop, "rotten", from the prefix for limbs or upright things.

Similarly, beri-nga "good" yields:

  • Un-beri-nga "clever" (hand-good).
  • Ig-beri-nga "sharp-sighted" (eye-good).
  • Aka-beri-nga "quick language learner" (tongue-good.)

Another peculiarity of terms for body parts is that they are inalienably possessed, requiring a possessive adjective prefix to complete them, so one cannot say "head" alone, but only "my, or his, or your, etc. head".[4]

The basic pronouns are almost identical throughout the Great Andamanese languages; Aka-Bea will serve as a representative example (pronouns given in their basic prefixal forms):

I, my d- we, our m-
thou, thy ŋ- you, your ŋ-
he, his, she, her, it, its a they, their l-

The Ongan pronouns are rather different; Önge is cited here:

I, my m- we, our et-, m-
thou, thy ŋ- you, your n-
he, his, she, her, it, its g- they, their ekw-, n-

Judging from the available sources, the Andamanese languages have only two cardinal numbers: one and two and their entire numerical lexicon is one, two, one more, some more, and all.[6]

The languages and their classification

Precontact and current distribution of Anamanese languages

The Andaman languages fall into two clear families, Great Andamanese and Ongan, plus one unattested language, Sentinelese. These are generally seen as related. However, the similarities between Great Andamanese and Ongan are so far mainly of morphological nature, with little demonstrated common vocabulary. As a result, researchers such as Joseph Greenberg have expressed doubts as to the validity of Andamanese as a family[7] The Andaman languages are:[8]

In addition,

  • Sentinelese; likely at least 50 speakers, and perhaps up towards 250 (the population of the Sentinelese is unknown).

Joseph Greenberg proposed that these languages, or at least Great Andamanese, are related to western Papuan languages as members of a larger phylum he called Indo-Pacific[7], 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 vitual formal identity […] in a number of instances", but considers this to be due to a linguistic substratum rather than a direct relationship.[9]

Samples

The following poem in Aka-Bea was written by a chief, Jambu, after he was freed from a six-month jail term for manslaughter.[10]

ngô:do kûk l'àrtâ:lagî:ka,
mō:ro el:ma kâ igbâ:dàla
mō:ro el:mo lê aden:yarà
pō:-tōt läh.
Chorus: aden:yarà pō:-tōt läh.

Literally:

thou heart-sad art,
sky-surface to there looking while,
sky-surface of ripple to looking while,
bamboo spear on lean-dost.

Translation:

Thou art sad at heart,
gazing there at the sky's surface,
gazing at the ripple on the sky's surface,
leaning on the bamboo spear.

Note, however, that, as seems to be typical of Andamanese poetry, the words and sentence structure have been somewhat abbreviated or inverted in order to obtain the desired rhythmical effect.

As another example, we give part of a creation myth in Oko-Juwoi, reminiscent of Prometheus:

Kuro-t'on-mik-a Mom Mirit-la, Bilik l'ôkô-ema-t, peakar at-lo top - chike at laiche Lech-lin a, kotik a ôko-kodak-chine at-lo Karat-tatak-emi-in.

Literally:

"Kuro-t'on-mik-in Mr. Pigeon, God _-slep-t, wood fire-with stealing - was fire the+late Lech-to he, then he _-fire-make-did fire-with Karat-tatak-emi-at."

Translated (by Portman):

Mr. Pigeon stole a firebrand at Kuro-t'on-mika, while God was sleeping. He gave the brand to the late Lech, who then made fires at Karat-tatak-emi.

References

  1. ^ Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. (1922). The Andaman Islanders: A study in social anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  2. ^ Abbi, Anvita (2008). “Is Great Andamanese genealogically and typologically distinct from Onge and Jarawa?” Language Sciences, doi:10.1016/j.langsci.2008.02.002
  3. ^ a b Abbi, Anvita (2006). Endangered Languages of the Andaman Islands. Germany: Lincom GmbH.
  4. ^ a b c Burenhult, Niclas (1996). "Deep linguistic prehistory with particular reference to Andamanese." Working Papers 45, 5-24. Lund University: Department of Linguistics
  5. ^ Abbi, Anvita and Bidisha Som (2007). "Where Have All The Speakers Gone? A Sociolinguistic Study of The Great Andamanese", Indian Linguistics 68.3-4:325-343.
  6. ^ a b c d Temple, Richard C. (1902). 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.
  7. ^ a b Greenberg, Joseph (1971). "The Indo-Pacific hypothesis." Current trends in linguistics vol. 8, ed. by Thomas A. Sebeok, 807.71. The Hague: Mouton.
  8. ^ Manoharan, S. (1983). "Subgrouping Andamanese group of languages." International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics XII(1): 82-95.
  9. ^ Wurm, S.A. (1977). New Guinea Area Languages and Language Study, Volume 1: Papuan Languages and the New Guinea Linguistic Scene. Pacific Linguistics, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University, Canberra.
  10. ^ Man, E.H. (1923). Dictionary of the South Andaman Language. British India Press: Bombay

Bibliography

  • Abbi, Anvita. Endangered Languages of the Andaman Islands. Germany: Lincom GmbH 2006.
  • Das Gupta, D., and SR Sharma. A Handbook of the Önge Language. Anthropological Survey of India: Calcutta 1982.
  • Blevins, Juliette. 2007. A long lost sister of Proto-Austronesian? Proto-Ongan, Mother of Jarawa and Onge of the Andaman Islands. Oceanic Linguistics, 46:154-98.
  • Burenhult, Niclas. 1996. Deep linguistic prehistory with particular reference to Andamanese. Working Papers 45, 5-24. Lund University: Department of Linguistics.
  • E. H. Man, Dictionary of the South Andaman Language, British India Press: Bombay 1923.
  • E. H. Man. 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.” A. Abbi (ed.). The Languages of Tribal and Indigenous Peoples of India. The Ethnic Space. Delhi: Motilal Benarsidass
  • Portmann, M.V. Manual of the Andamanese Languages. Delhi 1887. Reprint Manas Publications, Delhi 1992.
  • Senkuttuvan, R. 2000. The Language of the Jarawa: Phonology. Calcutta: Anthropological Survey of India, Government of India, Ministry of Culture, Youth Affairs, and Sports, Dept. of Culture.
  • Sreenathan, M. 2001. Jarwa-Language and Culture. Anthropological Survey of India, Ministry of Culture, Government of India, Kolkata
  • Richard C. Temple. 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.
  • Yogendra Yadaav. "Great Andamanese, a Preliminary Study". Pacific Linguistics A67, 1985.
  • Zide, Norman Herbert & V. Pandya. “A Bibliographical Introduction to Andamanese Linguistics” JAOS 109:639-51

External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andamanese_languages"

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