Southern Nicobarese language explained

Southern Nicobarese
Nativename:	Sambelong
States:	India
Region:	Little Nicobar, Great Nicobar
Pushpin Map:	Bay of Bengal
Pushpin Map Caption:	Location in the Bay of Bengal.
Pushpin Label Position:	left
Coordinates:	6.83°N 93.8°W
Speakers:	7,500
Date:	2001 census
Ref:	e18
Familycolor:	Austro-Asiatic
Fam2:	Nicobarese
Fam3:	Southern
Dia1:	Great Nicobarese
Dia2:	Little Nicobarese
Iso3:	nik
Glotto:	sout2689
Glottorefname:	Southern Nicobarese

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)^[1] 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)^[2] 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

• Shompen language, also spoken on Great Nicobar

Notes and References

1. Lal, Parmanand. 1977. Great Nicobar Island: study in human ecology. Calcutta: Anthropological Survey of India, Govt. of India.
2. Sidwell, Paul. 2017. "Proto-Nicobarese Phonology, Morphology, Syntax: work in progress". International Conference on Austroasiatic Linguistics 7, Kiel, Sept 29-Oct 1, 2017.