| Bale | |
| Nativename: | Akar-Bale |
| States: | India |
| Region: | Andaman Islands
|
| Extinct: | between 1931 and 1951 |
| Familycolor: | Andamanese |
| Fam1: | Great Andamanese |
| Fam2: | Southern † |
| Iso3: | acl |
| Linglist: | acl.html |
| Glotto: | akar1243 |
| Glottorefname: | Akarbale |
| Map: | Schematic Map of Andamanese Languages & Tribes.png |
| Ethnicity: | Bale |
The Bale language, Akar-Bale (also Balwa), is an extinct Southern[1] Great Andamanese language once spoken in the Andaman Islands in Ritchie's Archipelago, Havelock Island, and Neill Island.
The Bale disappeared as a distinct people sometime after 1931.
The Great Andamanese languages are agglutinative languages, with an extensive prefix and suffix system.[2] They have a distinctive 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). Thus, for instance, the *aka- at the beginning of the language names is a prefix for objects related to the tongue.[2] An adjectival example can be given by the various forms of yop, "pliable, soft", in Aka-Bea:[2]
Similarly, beri-nga "good" yields:
The prefixes are,
| Bea | Balawa? | Bajigyâs? | Juwoi | Kol | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| head/heart | ot- | ôt- | ote- | ôto- | ôto- |
| hand/foot | ong- | ong- | ong- | ôn- | ôn- |
| mouth/tongue | âkà- | aka- | o- | ókô- | o- |
| torso (shoulder to shins) | ab- | ab- | ab- | a- | o- |
| eye/face/arm/breast | i-, ig- | id- | ir- | re- | er- |
| back/leg/butt | ar- | ar- | ar- | ra- | a- |
| waist | ôto- |
Body parts 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 basic pronouns are almost identical throughout the Great Andamanese languages; Aka-Bea will serve as a representative example (pronouns given in their basic prefixal forms):
| I, my | d- | we, our | m- | |
| thou, thy | ŋ- | you, your | ŋ- | |
| he, his, she, her, it, its | a | they, their | l- |
'This' and 'that' are distinguished as k- and t-.
Judging from the available sources, the Great Andamanese languages have only two cardinal numbers - one and two - and their entire numerical lexicon is one, two, one more, some more, and all.[2]