Andamanese languages

The Andamanese languages form a language family spoken by the Andamanese indigenous peoples in the Andaman Islands, a union territory of India. There are two recognized subfamilies, Great Andamanese and South Andamanese. The Great Andamanese languages are further divided into Central and Northern groups. All of the Great Andamanese languages except Pucikwar became extinct in the 20th century; as the few-surviving individuals of indigenous Great Andamanese descent inter-married with Karen (Burmese) and Indian settlers, their linguistic and tribal distinctions were lost and these few dozen today are primarily speakers of Hindi. The South Andamanese languages survive mainly because of the greater isolation of the peoples who speak them, reinforced by the extreme reluctance and outright hostility they have long maintained towards outside contact (particularly true of the Sentinelese and Jarawa).

The languages and their classification

The languages in the family include:

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• Great Andamanese (spoken by Great Andamanese peoples)
• Central
• Aka-Bea or Bea (extinct)
• Akar-Bale or Bale (extinct)
• Aka-Kede or Kede (extinct)
• Aka-Kol or Kol (extinct)
• Oko-Juwoi or Juwoi (extinct)
• A-Pucikwar or Pucikwar; 36 speakers in 1997, bilingual in Hindi
• Northern
• Aka-Cari or Chari (extinct)
• Aka-Kora or Kora (extinct)
• Aka-Jeru or Jeru (extinct)
• Aka-Bo or Bo (extinct)
• South Andamanese
• Önge; 96 speakers (Onge) in 1997, mostly monolingual
• Järawa; estimated 200 speakers (Jarawa) in 1997, mostly monolingual

In addition, one may note:

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• Sentinelese; likely at least 50 speakers, and perhaps up towards 250 (the population of the Sentinelese is unknown). Since interactions with the Sentinelese have been extremely rare, brief and generally shunned by the people themselves, there has been no material or even wordlists published on their language, and hence no certain classification. On the two documented occasions when Onge and Aka-Bea individuals were taken to their island (North Sentinel Island) in order to attempt communication, in neither case were they able to recognise any of the language spoken by the inhabitants (the exchanges were admittedly brief and hostile). However, based on what little is known about similarities in their culture and technology, and their geographical proximity, it can be surmised that their history and language is more closely related to the South Andamanese branch than that of the Great Andamanese.

"Long-ranger" linguists such as Joseph Greenberg have seen these languages as distant members of a phylum called Indo-Pacific, together with Papuan languages. Other linguists consider these languages to have no known relatives.

Related Topics:
Joseph Greenberg - Indo-Pacific - Papuan languages

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Andaman Islanders are physically Negritos - short-statured, peppercorn-haired, dark-skinned people found in small surviving pockets all over tropical Asia and New Guinea, and perhaps beyond. However, all other Negrito groups in Asia proper speak languages closely related to those of their non-Negrito neighbors, whereas Andamanese shows no similarity to the language even of the Nicobar Islands. This has led some to speculate that the Andamanese languages may be representative of the (or one of the) original languages spoken by the Asian Negritos before other groups took over their areas, leaving them in their current fragmented distribution.

Related Topics:
Negrito - Asia - New Guinea - Nicobar Islands

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~