Southern Nicobarese
Sambelong
Native toIndia
RegionLittle Nicobar, Great Nicobar
Native speakers
7,500 (2001 census)[1]
Austroasiatic
Dialects
  • Great Nicobarese
  • Little Nicobarese
Language codes
ISO 639-3nik
Glottologsout2689
ELPSouthern Nicobarese
Approximate location where Southern Nicobarese is spoken
Approximate location where Southern Nicobarese is spoken
Southern Nicobarese
Location in the Bay of Bengal.
Coordinates: 6°50′N 93°48′E / 6.83°N 93.80°E / 6.83; 93.80

Southern Nicobarese is a Nicobarese language, spoken on the Southern Nicobar Islands of Little Nicobar (Ong), Great Nicobar (Lo'ong), and a couple small neighboring islands, Kondul (Lamongshe) and Pulo Milo (Milo Island). Each is said to have its own dialect.

Distribution

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.

  • Pulo-kunyi
  • Kopenhaiyen
  • Kashindon
  • Koye
  • Pulo-babi
  • Batadiya
  • Kakaiyu
  • Pulo-pucca
  • Ehengloy
  • Pulo-baha
  • Chinge

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

Paul Sidwell (2017)[3] published in ICAAL 2017 conference on Nicobarese languages.

WordSouthern Nicobareseproto-Nicobarese
hottait*taɲ
fourfôat*foan
childkōˑan*kuːn
lippaṅ-nōˑin*manuːɲ
dogâm*ʔam
nighthatòm*hatəːm
male(otāˑha)*koːɲ
earnâng*naŋ
oneheg*hiaŋ
bellywīˑang*ʔac
sunhēg-
sweetshai(t)-

See also

References

  1. Southern Nicobarese at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. Lal, Parmanand. 1977. Great Nicobar Island: study in human ecology. Calcutta: Anthropological Survey of India, Govt. of India.
  3. Sidwell, Paul. 2017. "Proto-Nicobarese Phonology, Morphology, Syntax: work in progress". International Conference on Austroasiatic Linguistics 7, Kiel, Sept 29-Oct 1, 2017.


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