Jarawa language (Andaman Islands)
| Jarawa | |
|---|---|
| Aong | |
| Native to | India |
| Region | Andaman Islands; interior and south central Rutland island, central interior and south interior of South Andaman island, Middle Andaman island, west coast, 70 square km reserve. |
| Ethnicity | Jarawa |
Native speakers |
270 (2001–2002)[1] Literacy rate in L1: Below 1%. |
|
Ongan
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 |
anq |
| Glottolog |
jara1245[2] |
 | |
Järawa or Jarwa is an Ongan language spoken by the Jarawa people of the interior and south central Rutland Island, central interior and south interior South Andaman Island, and the west coast of Middle Andaman Island.
Järawa means 'foreigners' in Aka-Bea, the language of their traditional enemies. Like many peoples, they call themselves simply aong "people".
Phonology
Jarawa has six vowels and sixteen consonants, along with possible additional retroflexes, aspirates, and/or another vowel phoneme.[3]
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | u | |
| Close-mid | e | o | |
| Mid | ə | ||
| Open | a |
Consonants
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | lab. | ||||||
| Nasal | m | n | |||||
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | c | k | ||
| voiced | b | d | ɟ | a | |||
| Fricative | h | (hʷ) | |||||
| Trill | r | ||||||
| Approximant | l | j | w | ||||
Characteristics
Word-initial contrast between /p/ and /b/ is disappearing, with /p/ becoming /b/ (note that in Onge /p/ is not phonemically present).[4]
Jarawa words are at least monosyllabic, and content words are at least bimoraic.[4] Maximal syllables are CVC.[4]
/c/ voices intervocalically in derived environments, /ə/ syncopates when followed by another vowel across a morpheme boundary, /ə/ becomes [o] when the next syllable has a round vowel, and whole syllables may be deleted in fast speech.[4]
References
- ↑ Chittaranjan Kumar Paty & Forest, government, and tribe (2007:102)
- ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Jarawa (India)". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
- ↑ Blevins (2007:160–161)
- 1 2 3 4 Blevins (2007:161)
Bibliography
- Blevins, Juliette (2007), "A Long Lost Sister of Proto-Austronesian? Proto-Ongan, Mother of Jarawa and Onge of the Andaman Islands", Oceanic Linguistics, 46 (1): 154–198, doi:10.1353/ol.2007.0015