Ongan languages
| Ongan | |
|---|---|
| South Andamanese | |
| Geographic distribution: |
Andaman Islands |
| Linguistic classification: | One of the world's primary language families; geographically among the Andamanese languages |
| Subdivisions: | |
| Glottolog: | jara1244[1] |
Distribution of the Ongan languages prior to 1850 (Fig. 1) and in 2005 (Fig. 2)
|
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Ongan, also called South Andamanese or Jarawa–Onge, is a small family of two languages, Önge and Jarawa, spoken in the southern Andaman Islands:
The two extant languages are:
- Önge or Onge (⟨ö⟩ transcribes /ə/); 96 speakers (Onge) in 1997, mostly monolingual
- Jarawa or Järawa; estimated at 200 speakers (Jarawa) in 1997, monolingual
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.
Classification[edit]
The Andamanese languages fall into two clear families, Great Andamanese and Ongan, plus one presumed but unattested language, Sentinelese. The similarities between Great Andamanese and Ongan are mainly of a typological and morphological nature, with little demonstrated common vocabulary. Linguists, including long-range researchers such as Joseph Greenberg, have expressed doubts as to the validity of Andamanese as a family.[2] It has since been proposed that Ongan (but not Great Andamanese) is distantly related to Austronesian in a family called Austronesian–Ongan,[3] but the proposal has not been well received.
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) |
*ə appears to be allophonic for *e before a nasal coda.
Grammar[edit]
The Ongan languages are agglutinative, with an extensive prefix and suffix system.[5][6] They have 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).[7] 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".[7]
The Ongan pronouns are here represented by Önge:
| I, my | m- | we, our | et-, ot- |
| thou, thy | ŋ- | you, your | n- |
| he, his, she, her, it, its | g- | they, their | ekw-, ek-, ok- |
There is also an indefinite prefix ən-, on- "someone's". Jarawa does not have the plural series, but the singular is very close: m-, ŋ- or n-, w-, ən-. From this, Blevins reconstructs Proto-Ongan *m-, *ŋ-, *gw-, *en-.
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]
Bibliography[edit]
- Blevins, Juliette (2007), "A Long Lost Sister of Proto-Austronesian? Proto-Ongan, Mother of Jarawa and Onge of the Andaman Islands" (PDF), Oceanic Linguistics, 46 (1): 154–198, doi:10.1353/ol.2007.0015 (available here)
- Das Gupta, D. and S. R. 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.
- 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
References[edit]
- ^ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Jarawa–Onge". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
- ^ Greenberg, Joseph (1971). "The Indo-Pacific Hypothesis." Current Trends in Linguistics Vol. 8, ed. by Thomas A. Sebeok, 807.71. The Hague: Mouton.
- ^ Blevins, Juliette (2007), "A Long Lost Sister of Proto-Austronesian? Proto-Ongan, Mother of Jarawa and Onge of the Andaman Islands" (PDF), Oceanic Linguistics, 46 (1): 154–198, doi:10.1353/ol.2007.0015
- ^ a b Blevins (2007:163–164)
- ^ Abbi, Anvita (2006). Endangered Languages of the Andaman Islands. Germany: Lincom GmbH.
- ^ a b 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.
- ^ a b Burenhult, Niclas (1996). "Deep Linguistic Prehistory with Particular Reference to Andamanese." Working Papers 45, 5-24. Lund University: Department of Linguistics
