Ongan languages
Encyclopedia
Ongan, or South Andamanese, is a small family of two languages, Önge
and Jarawa, spoken in the southern Andaman Islands
:
A third language, Jangil
, extinct sometime between 1895 and 1920, is reported to have been unintelligible with but to have had noticeable connections with Jarawa.
. These are generally seen as related, and Sentinelese is assumed to be closest to Ongan. However, the similarities between Great Andamanese and Ongan are so far mainly of a typological
and morphological
nature, with little demonstrated common vocabulary. As a result, some linguists, including long-range researchers such as Joseph Greenberg
, have expressed doubts as to the validity of Andamanese as a family. It has since been proposed that Ongan is distantly related to Austronesian
(Blevins 2007).
The two attested Ongan languages are relatively close, and the historical sound reconstruction mostly straightforward:
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). 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".
The Ongan pronouns are here represented by Önge:
Judging from the available sources, the Andamanese languages have only two cardinal number
s: one and two and their entire numerical lexicon is one, two, one more, some more, and all.
Önge language
The Onge or Öñge language is a language spoken by the Onge people in Little Andaman Island. It is one of two known Ongan languages.Önge used to be spoken throughout Little Andaman as well as in smaller islands to the north - and possibly in the southern tip of South Andaman island...
and Jarawa, spoken in the southern Andaman Islands
Andaman Islands
The Andaman Islands are a group of Indian Ocean archipelagic islands in the Bay of Bengal between India to the west, and Burma , to the north and east...
:
- Ongan
- ÖngeÖnge languageThe Onge or Öñge language is a language spoken by the Onge people in Little Andaman Island. It is one of two known Ongan languages.Önge used to be spoken throughout Little Andaman as well as in smaller islands to the north - and possibly in the southern tip of South Andaman island...
or Onge; 96 speakers (Onge) in 1997, mostly monolingual - Jarawa or Järawa; estimated at 200 speakers (JarawaJarawa (Andaman Islands)The Jarawa are one of the adivasi indigenous peoples of the Andaman Islands. Their present numbers are estimated at between 250-350 individuals. Since they have largely shunned interactions with outsiders, many particulars of their society, culture and traditions are poorly understood...
) in 1997, monolingual
- Önge
A third language, Jangil
Jangil
The Jangil were one of the Andamanese indigenous peoples of the Andaman Islands, located in the Bay of Bengal. They were formerly distributed through the interior of Rutland Island, and were given the name Rutland Jarawa because it was supposed that they were related to the neighbouring Jarawa...
, extinct sometime between 1895 and 1920, is reported to have been unintelligible with but to have had noticeable connections with Jarawa.
Classification
The Andaman languages fall into two clear families, Great Andamanese and Ongan, plus one unattested language, SentineleseSentinelese language
Sentinelese is the unknown language of the Sentinelese people of North Sentinel Island in the Andaman Islands, India. It is presumably a distinct Andamanese language, but how closely it may be related to other languages of those families is unknown...
. These are generally seen as related, and Sentinelese is assumed to be closest to Ongan. However, the similarities between Great Andamanese and Ongan are so far mainly of a typological
Linguistic typology
Linguistic typology is a subfield of linguistics that studies and classifies languages according to their structural features. Its aim is to describe and explain the common properties and the structural diversity of the world's languages...
and morphological
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
nature, with little demonstrated common vocabulary. As a result, some linguists, including long-range researchers such as Joseph Greenberg
Joseph Greenberg
Joseph Harold Greenberg was a prominent and controversial American linguist, principally known for his work in two areas, linguistic typology and the genetic classification of languages.- Early life and career :...
, have expressed doubts as to the validity of Andamanese as a family. It has since been proposed that Ongan is distantly related to Austronesian
Proto-Austronesian language
The Proto-Austronesian language is the reconstructed ancestor of the Austronesian languages, one of the world's major language families. However, Ross notes that what may be the most divergent languages, Tsou, Rukai, and Puyuma, are not addressed by the reconstructions, which therefore cannot...
(Blevins 2007).
The two attested Ongan languages are relatively close, and the historical sound reconstruction mostly straightforward:
| Proto-Ongan | *p | *b | *t | *d | *kʷ | *k | *ɡ | *j | *w | *c | *ɟ | *m | *n | *ɲ | *ŋ | *l | *r |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jarawa | p, b | b | t | d | hʷ, h | h | ɡ, j | j | w | c | ɟ | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | l | r |
| Onge | b | b | t, d | d, r | kʷ, h | k, ɡ | ɡ, Ø | j | w | c, ɟ | ɟ | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | l, j | r/j/l, Ø |
| Proto-Ongan | *i | *u | *a | *e | *o | (*ə) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jarawa | i | u | a | e, ə, o | o | (ə) |
| Onge | i | u | a | e, ə, o | o | (ə) |
Grammar
The Ongan languages are agglutinative languages, with an extensive prefix and suffix system. They have a noun classNoun class
In linguistics, the term noun class refers to a system of categorizing nouns. A noun may belong to a given class because of characteristic features of its referent, such as sex, animacy, shape, but counting a given noun among nouns of such or another class is often clearly conventional...
system based largely on body parts, in which every noun
Noun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
and adjective
Adjective
In grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....
may take a prefix according to which body part it is associated with (on the basis of shape, or functional association). Another peculiarity of terms for body parts is that they are inalienably possessed
Inalienable possession
In linguistics, inalienable possession refers to the linguistic properties of certain nouns or nominal morphemes based on the fact that they are always possessed. The semantic underpinning is that entities like body parts and relatives do not exist apart from a possessor. For example, a hand...
, requiring a possessive adjective
Possessive adjective
Possessive adjectives, also known as possessive determiners, are a part of speech that modifies a noun by attributing possession to someone or something...
prefix to complete them, so one cannot say "head" alone, but only "my, or his, or your, etc. head".
The Ongan pronouns are here represented by Önge:
| 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 number
Cardinal number
In mathematics, cardinal numbers, or cardinals for short, are a generalization of the natural numbers used to measure the cardinality of sets. The cardinality of a finite set is a natural number – the number of elements in the set. The transfinite cardinal numbers describe the sizes of infinite...
s: one and two and their entire numerical lexicon is one, two, one more, some more, and all.