Native to India Language family Ongan
Jarawa | Ethnicity Jarawa Writing system None | |
Region Andaman Islands; interior and south central Rutland island, central interior and south interior of South Andaman island, Middle Andaman island, west coast, 70 square km reserve. Native speakers 270 (2001–2002)
Literacy rate in L1: Below 1%. | ||
Järawa or Jarwa is an Ongan language spoken by the Jarawa people of the interior and south central Rutland Island, central interior and south interior South Andaman Island, and the west coast of Middle Andaman Island.
Contents
Järawa means 'foreigners' in Aka-Bea, the language of their traditional enemies. Like many peoples, they call themselves simply aong "people".
People & Use
Jarawa is a language used mainly by hunter-gatherer communities who would live along the western coast of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Jarawas have only a population of 270 remaining. Their primary threat is a highway running through their territory and reserve of 1,028 square kilometers of dense evergreen forests.
Phonology
Jarawa has six vowels and sixteen consonants, along with possible additional retroflexes, aspirates, and/or another vowel phoneme.
Vowels
The language of Jarawa uses close (high), mid, and open to distinguish between the height of the vowels. For the tongue position, they characterize vowels as front, central, and back. For the position of lips, vowels are characterized as rounded or unrounded.
Characteristics
Word-initial contrast between /p/ and /b/ is disappearing, with /p/ becoming /b/ (note that in Onge /p/ is not phonemically present).
Jarawa words are at least monosyllabic, and content words are at least bimoraic. Maximal syllables are CVC.
/c/ voices intervocalically in derived environments, /ə/ syncopates when followed by another vowel across a morpheme boundary, /ə/ becomes [o] when the next syllable has a round vowel, and whole syllables may be deleted in fast speech.