Southern Nicobarese language

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.

Southern Nicobarese
Sambelong
Native to	India
Region	Little Nicobar, Great Nicobar
Native speakers	7,500 (2001 census)[1]
Language family	Austroasiatic Nicobarese Southern Southern Nicobarese
Dialects	Great Nicobarese Little Nicobarese
Language codes
ISO 639-3	nik
Glottolog	sout2689
ELP	Southern Nicobarese
Southern Nicobarese Location in the Bay of Bengal.
Coordinates: 6.83°N 93.80°E / 6.83; 93.80

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.

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

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.