| Southern Nicobarese | |
|---|---|
| Sambelong | |
| Native to | India |
| Region | Little Nicobar, Great Nicobar |
Native speakers | 7,500 (2001 census)[1] |
Austroasiatic
| |
| Dialects |
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | nik |
| Glottolog | sout2689 |
| ELP | Southern Nicobarese |
  Southern Nicobarese Location in the Bay of Bengal. | |
| Coordinates: 6°50′N 93°48′E / 6.83°N 93.80°E | |
Southern Nicobarese is a Nicobarese language, spoken on the Southern Nicobar Islands of Little Nicobar (Ong), Great Nicobar (Lo'ong), and small neighboring islands, Kondul (Lamongshe) and Pulo Milo (Milo Island) each of which have own dialects.
Distribution
[edit]Parmanand Lal (1977:23)[2] reported 11 Nicobarese villages with 192 people in all, located mostly along the western coast of Great Nicobar Island. Pulo-babi village was the site of Lal's extensive ethnographic study.
- Batadiya
- Chinge
- Ehengloy
- Kakaiyu
- Kashindon
- Kopenhaiyen
- Koye
- Pulo-babi
- Pulo-baha
- Pulo-kunyi
- Pulo-pucca
Lal (1977:104) also reported the presence of several Shompen villages in the interior of Great Nicobar Island.
- Dakade (10 km northeast of Pulo-babi, a Nicobarese village; 15 persons and 4 huts)
- Puithey (16 km southeast of Pulo-babi)
- Tataiya (inhabited by the Dogmar River Shompen group, who had moved from Tataiya to Pulo-kunyi between 1960 and 1977)
Vocabulary
[edit]Paul Sidwell (2017)[3] published in ICAAL 2017 conference on Nicobarese languages.
| Word | Southern Nicobarese | proto-Nicobarese |
|---|---|---|
| hot | tait | *taɲ |
| four | fôat | *foan |
| child | kōˑan | *kuːn |
| lip | paṅ-nōˑin | *manuːɲ |
| dog | âm | *ʔam |
| night | hatòm | *hatəːm |
| male | (otāˑha) | *koːɲ |
| ear | nâng | *naŋ |
| one | heg | *hiaŋ |
| belly | wīˑang | *ʔac |
| sun | hēg | - |
| sweet | shai(t) | - |
See also
[edit]- Shompen language, also spoken on Great Nicobar
References
[edit]- ^ Southern Nicobarese at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ Lal, Parmanand. 1977. Great Nicobar Island: study in human ecology. Calcutta: Anthropological Survey of India, Govt. of India.
- ^ Sidwell, Paul. 2017. "Proto-Nicobarese Phonology, Morphology, Syntax: work in progress". International Conference on Austroasiatic Linguistics 7, Kiel, Sept 29-Oct 1, 2017.