Andamanese languages
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Andaman_tribal_&_linguistic_map.jpg
The Andamanese languages form a language family spoken in the Andaman Islands, a union territory of India. There are two recognized subfamilies, Great Andamanese and South Andamanese. The Great Andamanese languages are divided into Central and Northern groups. All of the Great Andamanese languages except Pucikwar became extinct in the 20th century, as the Andamanese have become primarily speakers of Hindi; the South Andamanese languages survive mainly because of their greater isolation, as well as the extreme hostility their speakers long maintained (and, in the case of the Sentinelese, still maintain) towards outside contact.
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Grammar
The Andamanese languages are quite agglutinative, with an extensive prefix and suffix system. 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 association); thus, for instance, the "aka-" at the beginning of so many Andamanese languages' names is actually the prefix for objects related to the tongue. An adjectival example can be given by the various forms of yop, "pliable, soft", in Aka-Bea; 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 pronoun prefix to complete them, so one cannot say "head" alone, but only "my, or his, or your, etc. head".
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 | ng | you, your | ng |
| he, his, she, her, it, its | - | they, their | - |
The South Andamanese pronouns are rather different; we cite Onge here:
| I, my | mi | we, our | eti |
| thou, thy | ngi | you, your | ni |
| he, his, she, her, it, its | gi | they, their | ekwi |
Judging from the available sources, the Andamanese languages have only two cardinal numbers: one and two. However, curiously enough, they have at least six ordinal numbers. This gap in the vocabulary was remedied where necessary by the use of sign language.
The languages and their classification
The languages in the family include:
- Great Andamanese
- Central
- Northern
- South Andamanese
In addition, one may note:
- Sentinelese (possibly 50 speakers): no published material, not even wordlists, and hence no certain classification.
"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.
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.
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.
- 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.
(translation: E. H. Man, 1902.)
Note, however, that, as seems to be typical of Andamanese poetry, the words and sentence structure have been somewhat abbreviated to obtain the desired rhythm.
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.
Bibliography
- Das Gupta, D., and SR Sharma. A Handbook of the Önge Language. Anthropological Survey of India:Calcutta 1982.
- E. H. Man, Dictionary of the South Andaman Language, British India Press:Bombay 1923.
- 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
- 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.
- 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
- South Asia Bibliography - Andamanese (http://www.southasiabibliography.de/Bibliography/Andamanese/andamanese.html)
- Ethnologue - Andamanese family (http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?name=Andamanese&subid=1588)
- Andaman Association (http://www.andaman.org/book/chapter32/text32.htm)
- Rosetta Project:Onge (http://www.rosettaproject.org/live/search/detailedlanguagerecord?ethnocode=OON)
- Jero in IPA transcription (http://www.jnu.ac.in/jero_andamanese/Jero.html)es:Lenguas de las islas Andamán