Nicobarese languages


The Nicobarese languages or Nicobaric languages, form an isolated group of about half a dozen closely related Austroasiatic languages, spoken by most of the inhabitants of the Nicobar Islands administered by the Indian Republic. They have a total of about 30,000 speakers. Most Nicobarese speakers speak the Car language. Paul Sidwell considers the Nicobarese languages to subgroup with Aslian.
The Nicobarese languages appear to be related to the Shompen language of the indigenous inhabitants of the interior of Great Nicobar Island, which is usually considered a separate branch of Austroasiatic. However, Paul Sidwell classifies Shompen as a Southern Nicobaric language rather than as a separate branch of Austroasiatic.
The morphological similarities between Nicobarese and Austronesian languages have been used as evidence for the Austric hypothesis.
In general, the Nicobarese languages display verb-initial word orders, split ergativity, and have elaborate paradigmatic agreement systems.

Languages

From north to south, the Nicobaric languages are:

Sidwell (2017)

Paul Sidwell classifies the Nicobaric languages as follows.
  • Nicobaric
  • *Car
  • *Chaura–Teressa
  • **Teressa, Chaura
  • *Central-Southern
  • **Central: Nancowry, Camorta, Katchall
  • **Southern: Southern Nicobarese, Shompen

    Sidwell (2022)

Sidwell, based on a computational phylogenetic lexical analysis, proposes a new classification which treats Car and Shompen as single language branches of North and South Nicobarese while placing other lects into Central Nicobarese.
  • Nicobarese
  • *Northern
  • **Car
  • *Central
  • **Chawra–Teressa
  • ***Chawra
  • ***Teressa–Bompoka
  • **South–Central
  • ***Nancowry–Little Nicobar
  • ****Nancowry, Camorta, Katchall, Trinkat
  • ****Little Nicobarese
  • ***Great Nicobarese
  • *Southern
  • **Shompen