Great Andamanese leids

The Great Andamanese leids ar a nearly extinct leid family spoken bi the Great Andamanese fowks o the Andaman Islands, a union territory o Indie.

The leids an their classification[eedit | eedit soorce]

The Andaman leids fall intae twa clear families, Great Andamanese an Ongan, plus one unattested leid, Sentinelese. These ar generally seen as related. However, the similarities atween Great Andamanese an Ongan ar so far mainly o a typological morphological nature, wi little demonstrated common vocabulary. As a result, even lang-range researchers such as Joseph Greenberg hae expressed doubts as tae the validity o Andamanese as a family, and Abbi (2008) considers the survivingGreat Andamanese language tae be an isolate. The Great Andaman leids ar:

Great Andamanese (spoken bi Great Andamanese fowks)
- Southren
  - Aka-Bea or Bea (extinct)
  - Akar-Bale or Bale (extinct)
- Central
  - Aka-Kede or Kede (extinct)
  - Aka-Kol or Kol (extinct)
  - Oko-Juwoi or Juwoi (extinct)
  - A-Pucikwar or Pucikwar (extinct)
- Northren
  - Aka-Cari or Chari (extinct)
  - Aka-Kora or Kora (extinct)
  - Aka-Jeru or Jeru; 36 speakers in 1997, bilingual in Hindi
  - Aka-Bo or Bo (extinct)

Joseph Greenberg proposed that Great Andamanese is related tae western Papuan leids as members o a lairger phylum he called Indo-Pacific, but this is na generally accepted bi ither linguists. Stephen Wurm states that the lexical similarities atween Great Andamanese an the West Papuan an certain leids o Timor "ar quite strikin an amount tae virtual formal identity […] in a number o instances", but considers this tae be due tae a linguistic substratum rather than a direct relationship.