Önge leid
The Onge or Öñge leid ([ˈəŋɡe]; variously spelled Ongee, Eng, or Ung) is a leid spoken bi the Onge fowk in Little Andaman Island. It is ane o twa kent Ongan leids.
Önge uised tae be spoken throughoot Little Andaman as well as in smawer islands tae the north - an possibly in the soothren tip o Sooth Andaman island. Syne the middle o the 19t century, wi the arrival o the Breetish in the Andamans, an, efter Indien independence, the massive inflow o Indien settlers frae the mainland, the nummer o Onge speakers haes steadily declined, awtho a moderate increase haes been observed in recent years.[1] Currently, thare ar anerlie 94 native speakers o Onge[2], confined tae a single dounset in the northeast o Little Andaman island (see cairt ablo), makin it an endangered leid.
Phonology
eeditVowels
eedit| Front | Central | Back | |
| High | i | u | |
| Mid | e | ə | o |
| Low | a |
Thare is some vowel harmony: 1p pl. prefix et- becomes [ot-] when the vowel in the next syllable is /u/, e.g. et-eɟale 'oor faces' but ot-oticule 'oor heids'.[3]
Consonants
eedit| Labial | Coronal | Palatal | Velar | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stops | kʷ | b | t | d | c | ɟ | k | ɡ |
| Nasals | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||||
| Approximants | w | l (/r/) | j | |||||
/ʔ/? (c.f. Blevins (2007:161))
Blevins (2007:160-161) states that /c, ɟ/ ar actually affricates, an that retroflexes mey or mey no be phonemic.
/kʷ/ delabializes tae /k/ afore /u, o/.[3]
Phonemic /d/ surfaces as [r] intervocalically, while arguably some words hae phonemic /r/ which alternates wi surface [r, l, j].[4]
Phonotactics
eeditWords mey be monosyllabic or langer, even in content words (unlik in the closely relatit Jarawa). Words mey begin wi consonants or vowels, an maximal syllables ar o the form CVC. Aw Onge words end in vowels, except for imperatives, e.g. kaʔ 'gie'.
Consonant-final stems in Jarawa aften hae cognates wi final e in Onge, e.g. Jarawa iŋ, Onge iŋe 'watter'; Jarawa inen, Onge inene 'foreigner'; Jarawa dag, Onge dage 'coconut'. Heestorically thir vowels must hae been excrescent, as nonetymological wird-final e doesna surface when nummer markers ar suffixed, an the definite airticle (-gi efter etymological consonants, -i efter etymological vowels, due tae lenition) appears as -i efter etymological e but as -gi efter excrescent e, e.g. daŋe > daŋe-gi 'tree; dugoot'; kue > kue-i 'pig'.
NC clusters whiles optionally reduce tae single C, e.g. iɲɟo-/iɟo- 'tae drink' (c.f. Jarawa -iɲɟo).
Voiced obstruents mey optionally nasalize in syllable onset when the coda is nasal, e.g. bone/mone 'resin, resin torch' (c.f. Jarawa pone 'resin, resin torch').
Morphophonemics
eeditClusters across morpheme boundaries simplify tae homorganic sequences, includin geminates, which mey occur efter wird final -e drops, e.g. daŋe 'tree, dugout canoe' > dandena 'twa canoes'; umuge 'pigeon' > umulle 'pigeons'.[3]
References
eedit- ↑ The Colonisation of Little Andaman Island, retrieved 23 Juin 2008[deid airtin]
- ↑ Önge language - The Ethnologue
- ↑ a b c Blevins (2007:161)
- ↑ Blevins (2007:161-162)
Bibliography
eedit- Blevins, Juliette (2007), "A Long Lost Sister of Proto-Austronesian? Proto-Ongan, Mother of Jarawa and Onge of the Andaman Islands", Oceanic Linguistics, 46 (1): 154–198, doi:10.1353/ol.2007.0015
External links
eedit- Lewis, M. Paul, ed. (2009). Ethnologue: Languages of the World (16th ed.). Dallas, Texas: SIL International.
- Template:Linguistlist